Book: A delightful historical read about the wonders one can find in the humble index of a book. Most of us do not pay much attention to the back of the book - it is simply the place where we look for things. Yet here, hidden in plain sight, lies an incredible world of ambition and obsession, politics and dialogues, pleasure and play. Here we can find Butchers to be avoided, or Cows that breathe fire, or even catch Calvin in his hideouts with a Nun. This is the secret world of the index: an invaluable yet outstanding everyday tool, with a glorious but little-known history. Here, for the first time, its story is told. Tracing its strange journey from the monasteries and universities of 13th-century Europe to the Silicon Valley of the 21st, Dennis Duncan reveals how the index has saved heretics from the fire, kept politicians from high office, and turned us all into the readers we are today. We travel through German printing houses and Enlightenment cafés, salons of novel-writing and university workshops, meeting emperors and popes, philosophers and prime ministers, poets, librarians, and - of course - registrars along the way. Revealing its enormous role in our ever-evolving literary and intellectual culture, Duncan shows that, despite our concerns about the Age of Search, we are all at heart seekers of indices, and we have been for eight hundred years.

Pages: 352

Dimensions: 12.9x12.9cm