José María Pérez Fernández and Edward Wilson-Lee— A few days ago, a subsecretary in the newly-installed Italian government led by Mario Draghi tweeted out to followers an inspiring message which showed the continuing relevance of the great poet Dante to our present day: “Chi si ferma è perduto, mille anni
Tracy Daugherty— “At some deep level, poetry and physics are similar endeavors,” writes Mark A. Peterson, a mathematician and science historian. Both the poet and the scientist use the tools of their craft—words, numbers—to discover core truths about the nature and shape of the universe and humanity’s place in it.
The following is an excerpt from Alberto Manguel’s latest book, Curiosity. The word itself has been seen through the ages as the impulse that drives our knowledge forward and the temptation that leads us toward dangerous and forbidden waters. Here, Manguel explains the origins of the word as he sets the scene
What drives us to learn? How do books help us understand the world? How does language fail us? We sat down with reader and writer Alberto Manguel to satisfy our, well, curiosity. Yale University Press: How much do your personal experiences affect what you write about? Alberto Manguel: I’m not a scholar,