Today is the release day for Roland Allen’s new book The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper (Profile Books, 2023). Those in the note taking, #zettelkasten, #PKM, and intellectual history spaces may appreciate it.
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Chris Aldrich
I'm a biomedical and electrical engineer with interests in information theory, complexity, evolution, genetics, signal processing, IndieWeb, theoretical mathematics, and big history. I'm also a talent manager-producer-publisher in the entertainment industry with expertise in representation, distribution, finance, production, content delivery, and new media. View all posts by Chris Aldrich
Oh, looks very interesting! Thanks for the heads up.
@chrisaldrich It seems the description has a mistake: it's Maria Sebregondi not Maria Segrebondi
Oooh, adding this to my reading list
@chrisaldrich thank you for the pointer Chris, bought and downloaded.
@chrisaldrich Did you have a look already and can recommend it?
@ctietze I tried to get an advanced copy when I heard about it several months back, but didn’t have any luck. I’m waiting on my copy like everyone else, but his bona fides look reasonable and early reviews seem positive.
Syndicated copies:
@chrisaldrich Hope they’ll translate to spanish!
This popped up in my feed this morning, and is very likely relevant to our interests. I haven’t read it, but I’ll be ordering it. Apologies if this has been noted (heh) elsewhere already. (I know, I should learn to use the search function.)
Syndicated copies:
@chrisaldrich fabulous! I pre-ordered this a couple of weeks ago. Interesting that Roland Allen says he needed to write a history of ideas rather than a history of stationery. I see this as a very English, idealist, approach, in contrast to that of the German ‘ontological techno-materialism’ (!) of researchers such as https://monoskop.org/Friedrich_Kittler“>Friedrich Kittler. That school foregrounded the technological media, not the ideas they supposedly present. As Hektor Harkötter, author of https://www.fischerverlage.de/buch/hektor-haarkoetter-notizzettel-9783103973303“>Nottizettel (2021), suggests:
It’s hard for English speakers to key into this German tradition of radical anti-humanism, though we may have been a little prepared for it by reading Niklas Luhmann!
Anyway, I’m greatly looking forward to reading Allen’s history of thinking on paper.
Thank you for making me aware of this book! I very much enjoy the read.
Allen shows the big picture, and also is able to zoom into the practical details, which actually made the difference in history.
For instance explaining the difference between parchment and paper, both in terms of production (and cost), and permanence (as a record), and how the arrival of paper in Europe facilitated innovation in accounting, and business. Enlightening.