Customer Reviews

Worlds Made by Words: Scholarship and Community in the Modern West

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Anthony Grafton's gift for writing is largely hidden from view in some of the early chapters of this book made up of previously published articles and lectures.

When writing on obscure subjects for a narrow and elite readership in such publications as the Journal of Ideas or American Scholar or before university scholars in seminars at Stanford or Cambridge, the author's voice is naturally scholarly and not aimed at the general reader.

However, when writing for a magazine like The New Yorker Professor Grafton's gift for a wider communication is fully illuminated. I found the last two chapters in this book (on his father trying to interview Hannah Arendt and on the future of books in a Google world) worth the trouble of wading through the initial material that focuses on people few (certainly not I) had ever heard of on issues of seemingly limited importance to a common reader of today (like me).

I think Professor Grafton should now write a full, seamless book on a major modern theme wherein he can put to use both his talent for vivid language and the sharp reporting skills he certainly inherited from his father. Any such new book will indirectly, but still greatly, benefit from the vast knowledge he has obviously acquired over a lifetime of deep research into obscure medieval scholars and early classical ideas.