{"product_id":"inky-fingers-9780674271210","title":"Inky Fingers","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRenowned historian Anthony Grafton invites us to see the scholars of early modern Europe as laborers. Bookish but hardly divorced from physical tasks, they were artisans of script and print. Drawing new connections between text and craft, publishing and intellectual history, Grafton shows that the life of the mind depends on the work of the hands.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGrafton describes magnificent achievements, storms of controversy, and sometimes the pure devilment of scholars and printers, from the 15th to the early 17th centuries…Captivating and often amusing. * Wall Street Journal *\u003cbr\u003eThe essays…repopulate the world of high scholarship with participants of all social ranks, dragging the most rarefied ideas down to earth…For all his own intellectual daring, Grafton’s sympathies lie with gruntwork. Originality is upstaged by transmission, inspiration by logistics. Ideas, in this vivid telling, emerge not just from minds but from hands, not to mention the biceps that crank a press or heft a ream of paper. -- Leah Price * New York Review of Books *\u003cbr\u003eAs usual, Grafton presents largely unfamiliar material—his last essay looks at precursors to Spinoza’s rationalist approach to biblical interpretation—in a clear, even breezy style…Erudite. -- Michael Dirda * Washington Post *\u003cbr\u003eDescribes the texture of intellectual life from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment…Scholarship is a kind of heroism in Grafton’s account, his nine protagonists’ aching backs and tired eyes evidence of their valiant dedication to the pursuit of knowledge. -- Erin Maglaque * London Review of Books *\u003cbr\u003eExcellent and endlessly readable. -- Robert Fredona * Business History Review *\u003cbr\u003eDelightful…Weave[s] together an impressive range of case studies that investigate the labors of scholarly authors between 1500 and 1750. -- Arthur der Weduwen * Library \u0026amp; Information History *\u003cbr\u003eI can only gesture here to the richness of Grafton’s work…Looking at humanists in their world, Grafton shows once more that despite the ongoing challenges to the humanities, he is a worthy successor to those he writes about and an exemplar for those of us fortunate enough to know him or to read him. -- Jonathan Locke Hart * Renaissance and Reformation *\u003cbr\u003eA new book by Grafton is always a cause for celebration. * Choice *\u003cbr\u003eGrafton’s sweeping erudition and meticulous scholarship are on display in \u003ci\u003eInky Fingers\u003c\/i\u003e, which offers us a look over the shoulders of theologians and humanist scholars. His case studies illuminate how ‘traditional’ historical skills—the careful reading of texts, the deciphering of marginalia, and the tracing of arcane references—still hold countless possibilities for new readings and revelations. -- Daniel Jütte, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Strait Gate: Thresholds and Power in Western History\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eInky Fingers\u003c\/i\u003e directs our attention to the inky realities of book production and the messiness of everyday life. To erase urban contexts, correspondence networks, financial burdens, and other human factors from the early modern narrative, Grafton shows us, is to distort how new ideas—both famous and obscure—came into being. An excellent and thought-provoking book! -- Ada Palmer, author of \u003ci\u003eReading Lucretius in the Renaissance\u003c\/i\u003e and the \u003ci\u003eTerra Ignota\u003c\/i\u003e series","brand":"Harvard University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48865485226327,"sku":"9780674271210","price":18.86,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780674271210.jpg?v=1722274195","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/inky-fingers-9780674271210","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}