The Librarian's Atlas
Author | : Seth Kimmel |
Publisher | : University of Chicago Press |
Total Pages | : 271 |
Release | : 2024-05-06 |
ISBN-10 | : 9780226833187 |
ISBN-13 | : 0226833186 |
Rating | : 4/5 (186 Downloads) |
Download or read book The Librarian's Atlas written by Seth Kimmel and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2024-05-06 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of early modern libraries and the imperial desire for total knowledge. Medieval scholars imagined the library as a microcosm of the world, but as novel early modern ways of managing information facilitated empire in both the New and Old Worlds, the world became a projection of the library. In The Librarian’s Atlas, Seth Kimmel offers a sweeping material history of how the desire to catalog books coincided in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with the aspiration to control territory. Through a careful study of library culture in Spain and Morocco—close readings of catalogs, marginalia, indexes, commentaries, and maps—Kimmel reveals how the booklover’s dream of a comprehensive and well-organized library shaped an expanded sense of the world itself.