In 1492 the abbot of Sponheim, Johannes Trithemius, wrote a treatise called In Praise of Scribes. Monks, he argued, should keep copying books by hand even though the new presses could produce them faster. Copying was devotion. A scribe meditated […]
Historic events usually don't arrive on a date. The numerals Europe counts with didn't have a launch day. Leonardo of Pisa, the mathematician later called Fibonacci, brought the Hindu-Arabic system to Italian merchants in his Liber Abaci in 1202, and […]
Chellis Glendinning Most students of European history dismiss the Luddites of 19th century England as “reckless machine-smashers” and “vandals” worthy of mention only for their daring tactics. Probing beyond this interpretation, though, we find a complex, thoughtful, and little-understood social movement whose roots lay in a clash between two world-views. The worldview that 19th century Luddites […]
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