Reinventing Knowledge: From Alexandria to the Internet

by Ian F. McNeely, Lisa Wolverton (Editor)

Overview

“It has the power to wrench familiar aspects of history into new and surprising shapes.”—Laura Miller, Salon

Here is an intellectual extravaganza, a dazzling history of the key institutions that have shaped and channeled knowledge in the West from the classical period to the present. Fashioned with elegance and wit, this exhilarating survey carries us through the pivotal points of institutional change and cultural transformation. It is full of memorable characters, from the flamboyant founder of the great library at Alexandria and the arrogant medieval logician Peter Abelard to the dashing global adventurer von Humboldt. In its compact history we find the perfect context for understanding the vast changes we are experiencing now in the landscape of knowledge.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393337716
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	09/08/2009
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	5.56(w) x 8.34(h) x 0.84(d)

About the Author

Ian F. McNeely teaches at the University of Oregon and lives in Eugene.

Lisa Wolverton teaches at the University of Oregon and lives in Eugene.

Editorial Reviews

"An inspiring read."

New Scientist

"A magnificent overview of the history of knowledge production in the West."

Times Higher Education

"A sprightly, stimulating and surprising study."

The Scotsman

"An impressively cohesive story that is full of delightful characters and fascinating details."

Austin Chronicle

An intelligent, provocative history of institutions that preserve and disseminate information. McNeely and Wolverton (History/Univ. of Oregon) discuss six, beginning with the library. The great library founded in Alexandria, Egypt, in the third century BCE was actually a break with tradition, they note. Ancient Greek society was based on oral traditions, and not everyone was in favor of collecting written knowledge. Books are untrustworthy, Socrates insisted, because their contents are detached from the actions, honor and character of whoever wrote them. He wasn't entirely wrong, the authors maintain. Readers often grant undeserved authority to the written word, and even today nonsense competes with wisdom in all assemblies of information, the Internet most of all. On the other hand, writing is durable, so libraries caught on. In chronological order, the narrative moves on to the monastery, the university, the Republic of Letters, the disciplines and the laboratory. While other writers extol monasteries for preserving ancient texts during the Dark Ages, McNeely and Wolverton point out that monks devoted almost all their copying to Christian documents; the Islamic culture that arose after 600 CE did a better job of preserving ancient classics. The first universities, products of increasing prosperity in the 12th century, were simply urban collections of scholars and students; hundreds of years passed before construction produced the great institutions that remain today. Universities combined with moveable type and the Renaissance after 1450 to produce the Republic of Letters, an explosion of humanist thinkers who exchanged information throughout Europe in their common language, Latin. Somuch knowledge had accumulated by the 18th century that serious academics had to specialize and hence, the disciplines appeared. Throughout history, educated men studied what was already known; the Enlightenment launched a revolution with writers and scientists who took an interest in new knowledge. Laboratories produced a trickle then an avalanche of technical breakthroughs accompanied by a mass of information and information technology that today threatens to overwhelm us. Stimulating and witty-intellectual entertainment at its best.

Kirkus Reviews