Pg. 99: Ann Blair's "Too Much To Know"

Today's feature at the Page 99 Test: Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age by Ann M. Blair.

About the book, from the publisher:

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.

Learn more about Too Much to Know at the Yale University Press website.

Ann M. Blair is Henry Charles Lea Professor of History, Harvard University.

The Page 99 Test: Too Much to Know.

--Marshal Zeringue