The Encyclopedia: One Book’s Quest to Hold the Sum of All Knowledge

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 7 February 2023

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What if one book could contain the sum of mankind’s knowledge? Scholars and chroniclers have tried to write this book since antiquity, penning several so-called universal histories (perhaps the best was Rashid al-Din’s “Compendium of the Chronicles” that was commissioned by a Mongol Empire daughter state in 14th century). This goal was reached in 1768 with the first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica was published in Scotland by Enlightenment thinkers who believed that human thinking could be categorized. It became a fixture of American households in the 19th century and occupied the bookshelves of every library and school in the United States until very recently.

Today’s guest is Jill Lepore's show, host of the show “The Last Archive,” about the US's post-truth crisis -- of how we know what we know and why it seems lately as if we can't agree on anything at all. She both reckons with the present moment through her historical expertise and also presents solutions that are forward and current.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Scott here with another episode of the History Unplugged Podcast.
0:08.5	Encyclopedias were once universal in public libraries and middle-class homes, but they've
0:13.4	largely died off in the age of Wikipedia.
0:15.8	What's strange about encyclopedias is, although in some sense they seem timeless, they've
0:20.5	always existed, there have always been scholars that wanted to catalog human information in
0:24.7	different cultures.
0:25.7	They're actually a relatively recent invention.
0:28.7	The first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica came out of the Scottish Enlightenment between
0:32.9	1768 and 1771.
0:34.4	It and other versions were sensation and spread throughout the world with the growth of printing
0:39.4	facilities and public and private education.
0:42.0	The Encyclopedia Britannica really found a home in the United States.
0:45.0	There was already a robust sales infrastructure set up with Bible salesmen going door to door,
0:50.0	and it wasn't much of a leap for Encyclopedia salesmen to enter the mix.
0:53.4	Today's episode we're going to speak with Professor Jill Lapor, who is the host of the
0:57.2	show The Last Archive.
0:58.7	About the history of the Encyclopedia, attempts to catalog all of human knowledge, how it's
1:03.6	changed in the age of Wikipedia, and more broadly, how do we know what is true and what isn't
1:08.5	true in an age when we can't agree on anything at all?
1:11.5	How does information change when the form in which it's created and transmitted, from the
1:16.2	papyrus scroll to the vellum codex, to the Gutenberg Bible, to the Encyclopedia, to digital
1:21.7	information?
	...

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