A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order

From a New York Times bestselling historian, the “truly revelatory” (Wall Street Journal) story of how the alphabet ordered our world

A Place for Everything is the first-ever history of alphabetization, from the Library of Alexandria to Wikipedia. Once we’ve learned our ABCs as children, few of us ever think of them again, but alphabetical order plays a material role in our adult lives. From school registers to electoral rolls, from dictionaries and encyclopedias to library shelves, the alph...