This book review was written by Eugene Kernes
“The household, the kinship network, the guild, the corporation – these were the building blocks of personhood. Independence and self-reliance had no cultural purchase; indeed, they could scarcely be conceived, let alone prized. Identity came with a precise, well-understood place in a chain of command and obedience.” – Stephen Greenblatt, Chapter 1: The Book Hunter, Page 19
“All the same, monastic rules did require reading, and that was enough to set in motion an extraordinary chain of consequences. Reading was not optional or desirable or recommended; in a community that took its obligations with deadly seriousness, reading was obligatory. And reading required books. Books that were opened again and again eventually fell apart, however carefully they were handled. Therefore, almost inadvertently, monastic rules necessitated that monks repeatedly purchase or acquire books.” – Stephen Greenblatt, Chapter 2: The Moment Of Discovery, Page 31
“Authors made nothing from the sale of their books; their
profits derived from the wealthy patron to whom the work was dedicated. (The arrangement – which helps to account for
the fulsome flattery of dedicatory epistles – seems odd to us, but it had an
impressive stability, remaining in place until the invention of copyright in
the eighteenth century.) Publishers had
to contend, as we have seen, with the widespread copying of books among
friends, but the business of producing and marketing books must have been a
profitable one.” – Stephen Greenblatt, Chapter 4: The Teeth of Time, Page 80
Is This An Overview?
Books contain ideas that can change how a person thinks,
they can swerve the behavior of society.
But the ideas contained in books are fragile, as the survival of books was
under threat from various sources. Until
the advent of an educational system and mass literacy, there was low demand for
books as few people read books. Those
who did read tended to remove books that were not aligned with their groups’
ideology. Books were made of perishable
material, which was damaged by weather, repeated use, and insects. The book survival strategy, is to be
copied. Among those who could read, were
the Benedictine monks. Who kept to their
code of requiring reading. To read, they
needed books. Therefore housed,
protected, and copied books. Preserved
ideas. Preserved but not shared as much,
for there was an ordeal to take a book out to read by someone other than a
monk.
Few ancient books survived.
One book in particular was to be rediscovered, and influence the
decisions of many people. This was the
book On the Nature of Things by Lucretius. The ideas within the book stood in contrast
to the religious fervor during the era when it was written and
rediscovered. Many ideas held in the
book would later be validated through scientific procedures. A book that swerved society from ecclesial to
scientific.
Caveats?
There were many sources of societal change than a singular
book. During the eras that the author
was describing, there were various sources of influence and power struggles
that culminated into the swerves. There
were other societies and groups that were interested in books.
