Peter Burke's The Polymath

Before we get to The Polymath, let's recap Burke's thoughts on polymathy. Remember that, in a 2010 essay, “The polymath: A cultural and social history of an intellectual species,” he proposed a set of new definitions of the modern polymath:

1. The passive polymaths, who read widely but make their reputation in one discipline alone.
2. The limited polymaths, active in a small cluster of neighboring disciplines.
3. The serial polymaths, whose interests gradually shifted from one discipline to others.
4. Most remarkable of all, is a fourth group, proper polymaths who have continued to work in several fields and to make serious contributions to all of them, keeping several balls in the air at the same time rather than picking them up one by one.

He wrote that essay in an obscure collection titled Explorations in Cultural History: Essays for Peter Gabriel McCaffery, a book that appears to be out of print at this time.

He may have arrived at his interest in polymaths from his work on the social history of knowledge: A Social History of Knowledge: From Gutenberg to Diderot and A Social History of Knowledge II: From the Encyclopaedia to Wikipedia.

Either way, he is now one of the world's leading experts on polymaths and polymathy.

And with this brief background, we can now delve into his new book.

Peter Burke

I wrote that I had previously written about Peter Burke's ideas. Here is my post on his ideas on the four types of polymath.

Peter Burke, The Polymath

Polymathy is becoming a big industry. Historians, scientists, and other researchers and writers are increasingly paying attention to polymaths and polymathy. One of the leading recent thinkers on polymaths is the Cambridge historian Peter Burke, who has just published a new book, The Polymath: A cultural history from Leonardo da Vinci to Susan Sontag. Reviews of the book can be found here, here, and here, among other places.

Burke has been thinking and writing about polymaths and polymathy for quite a few years, and I have written about his ideas in the past.

I plan to review the book myself off and on over the coming weeks. But don't wait for my review. It's a fascinating and fabulous book. It is a must buy for anyone interested in polymathy.

 It's been three years, and I've still been thinking and writing about polymaths and polymathy. It's just about time to restart this blog. Keep posted.