You Could Look It Up
The Reference Shelf From Ancient Babylon to Wikipedia
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Descripción editorial
"Knowledge is of two kinds," said Samuel Johnson in 1775. "We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it." Today we think of Wikipedia as the source of all information, the ultimate reference. Yet it is just the latest in a long line of aggregated knowledge--reference works that have shaped the way we've seen the world for centuries.
You Could Look It Up chronicles the captivating stories behind these great works and their contents, and the way they have influenced each other. From The Code of Hammurabi, the earliest known compendium of laws in ancient Babylon almost two millennia before Christ to Pliny's Natural History; from the 11th-century Domesday Book recording land holdings in England to Abraham Ortelius's first atlas of the world; from Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language to The Whole Earth Catalog to Google, Jack Lynch illuminates the human stories and accomplishment behind each, as well as its enduring impact on civilization. In the process, he offers new insight into the value of knowledge.
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Lynch (The Lexicographer's Dilemma), a English professor at Rutgers University, gives a lively, learned history of reference books. Admiring their "concentrated wisdom," Lynch selects 50 key works for being trailblazers, notably controversial, highly influential, or simply eccentric. Using a sometimes puzzling design, he pairs the books and explores them in 25 separate chapters, each followed by a shorter chapter on an associated subject. Lynch successfully matches Diderot's L'Encyclop die and Encyclopedia Britannica. More strained is linking Claudius Ptolemy's Geography with the Domesday Book. Coupling George Grove's A Dictionary of Music and Musicians with Emily Post's Etiquette in Society feels particularly contrived. Elsewhere, Lynch contrasts the Acad mie Fran aise's precision with Samuel Johnson's idiosyncrasy, and compares Noah Webster's American Dictionary to the Grimm brothers' Deutsches W rterbuch as exercises in nation building. For science and medicine, Lynch includes Pliny the Elder's Natural History, Gray's Anatomy, and The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. He ends with Wikipedia, which he considers an encyclopedist's dream come true. Exhibiting a taste for the unusual, he also includes a list of unlikely titles such as the American Rabbit Breeders Association's Standard of Perfection. Anyone who enjoys reference books will embrace this erudite compilation and Lynch's appreciative, fluent commentary.
