Too Much to Know
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Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age
Ann Blair
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Format: PaperPrice: $27.50
Listen here to Ann Blair's interview on NPR's "Talk of the Nation."
The flood of information brought to us by advancing technology is often accompanied by a distressing sense of “information overload,” yet this experience is not unique to modern times. In fact, says Ann M. Blair in this intriguing book, the invention of the printing press and the ensuing abundance of books provoked sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European scholars to register complaints very similar to our own. Blair examines methods of information management in ancient and medieval Europe as well as the Islamic world and China, then focuses particular attention on the organization, composition, and reception of Latin reference books in print in early modern Europe. She explores in detail the sophisticated and sometimes idiosyncratic techniques that scholars and readers developed in an era of new technology and exploding information.
“Erudite and excellent…I am inclined to bestow a crown of laurels on Blair…for undertaking such a herculean task.”—Paula Findlen, The Nation
“Too Much To Know is a book that, by the solidity of its prose and the accurate richness of its scholarship, quietly reveals the industry and ambition that has gone into making it.”—Richard Serjeantson, Times Literary Supplement
Selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2011 in the History, Geography and Area Studies category.
Publication Date: September 13, 2011
31 b/w illus.
