Nicholas A. Basbanes

March 26, 2014.

Writer, journalist, cultural historian and bibliophile Nicholas A. Basbanes talks about his book On Paper: The Everything of Its Two Thousand Year History (Knopf), winner of the Amercian Library Association's Best Book of the Year award for 2013. 

"A consideration of all things paper—its invention that revolutionized human civilization; its thousand-fold uses (and misuses), proliferation, and sweeping influence on society; its makers, shapers, collectors, and pulpers—written by the admired cultural historian and author of the trilogy on all things book-related: A Gentle Madness; Patience and Fortitude; and A Splendor of Letters." 

54:17 minutes.

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Robert DeMaria, Jr.

March 5, 2014.

Robert DeMaria, Jr., Henry Noble McCracken Professor of English at Vassar College, talks about the paragon of eighteenth-century English scholarship and letters Samuel Johnson, Johnson's reading habits, his monumental Dictionary of the English Language, scholarly editing, and the final installments of the Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson.

33:42 minutes.

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Ann M. Blair

November 20, 2013.

Harvard College Professor and Henry Charles Lea Professor of History Ann Blair will discuss her book Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information Before the Modern Age, published by Yale University Press in 2011.

"There has always been 'too much to know.' In this lively and learned book, Ann Blair shows us how early modern Europeans managed to survive—and even to surf—what they saw as tidal waves of information. Her insightful comparisons, careful attention to the survival of traditional methods, and clear vision of the new culture of passionate curiosity that took place in the Renaissance give her work extraordinary range and depth." — Anthony Grafton.

53:14 minutes.

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