Silence: A Social History of One of the Least Understood Elements of Our Lives

A compelling history of silence as a shaper of the human mind—in prisons, in places of contemplation, and in our own lives—from the author of Brilliant.

Through her evocative intertwined histories of the penitentiary and the monastery, Jane Brox illuminates the many ways silence is far more complex than any absolute; how it has influenced ideas of the self, soul, and society. Brox traces its place as a transformative power in the monastic world from Medieval Europe to the very public life o...