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

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

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.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episoder(1076)

The Alabaman Jacksonians Who Rejected the Confederacy and Marched with Sherman to the Sea

The Alabaman Jacksonians Who Rejected the Confederacy and Marched with Sherman to the Sea

As the popular narrative goes, the Civil War was won when courageous Yankees triumphed over the South. But an aspect of the war that has remained little-known for 160 years is the Alabamian Union sold...

2 Sep 202549min

Frederick Douglass’s Private Writings on Abraham Lincoln, His Strong Critiques and Stronger Praise

Frederick Douglass’s Private Writings on Abraham Lincoln, His Strong Critiques and Stronger Praise

Frederick Douglass made the strongest arguments for abolition in antebellum America because he made the case that abolition was not a mutation of the Founding Father’s vision of America, but a fulfill...

28 Aug 202549min

The Industrial Revolution Was Supposed to Lead to Unlimited Free Time But Only Gave Us Smartphones and Endless Dopamine

The Industrial Revolution Was Supposed to Lead to Unlimited Free Time But Only Gave Us Smartphones and Endless Dopamine

Free time, one of life’s most important commodities, often feels unfulfilling. But why? And how did leisure activities transition from strolling in the park for hours to “doomscrolling” on social medi...

26 Aug 202531min

James Cook Mapped the Globe Before Dying At the Hands of Hawaiians Who Once Worshipped Him

James Cook Mapped the Globe Before Dying At the Hands of Hawaiians Who Once Worshipped Him

Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan are known for discoveries, but it was Captain James Cook who made global travel truly possible. Cook was an 18th-century British explorer who mapped vast re...

21 Aug 202556min

American Anarchists: The Original Domestic Extremists

American Anarchists: The Original Domestic Extremists

In the early twentieth century, anarchists like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman championed a radical vision of a world without states, laws, or private property. Militant and sometimes violent, ana...

19 Aug 202539min

100 Years Before Ford v. Ferrari, a Horse Breeder Revolutionized Thoroughbred Racing Through a Similar Obsession With Progress

100 Years Before Ford v. Ferrari, a Horse Breeder Revolutionized Thoroughbred Racing Through a Similar Obsession With Progress

Horse racing was the most popular sport in early America, drawing massive crowds and fueling a cultural obsession with horses’ speed and pedigree. In the early 1800s, every town in America with a few ...

14 Aug 20251h 14min

Western Rome Fell Due to Germanic Immigration, Mass Inflation, and a Bloated Bureaucracy

Western Rome Fell Due to Germanic Immigration, Mass Inflation, and a Bloated Bureaucracy

It took little more than a single generation for the centuries-old Roman Empire to fall. In those critical decades, while Christians and pagans, legions and barbarians, generals and politicians squabb...

12 Aug 202539min

Why the Atomic Bombing of Japan is as Justified in 2025 as it was in 1945

Why the Atomic Bombing of Japan is as Justified in 2025 as it was in 1945

It's been 80 years since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the question of whether or not those bombings were justified has never been more contentious. That wasn't the case in the immediate...

7 Aug 202552min

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