Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

The Polymath, which covers the period from the Renaissance to our time, is not a biography of polymaths, nor a gallery of individual portraits, however fascinating as they may have been. it is rather an examination of the different types of polymaths, as well as an examination of the social climates “that are favourable or unfavourable to polymathic endeavours.”

This is an interesting overview of polymaths - i.e. individuals who understand and even excel in several different scholarly disciplines. It is set out as a chronological survey of polymaths and the author has identified a 500 specific individuals. He gives pen portraits in the chapters and sets them out in a long list at the end of the book.

But the book also does something more. The chapters include some notes on the emergence and development of the scholarly disciplines and the institutions and networks that sustain and promote them (journals, universities, indexical systems, encyclopaedia, conferences, &c). In this way, the book focuses on the organisation and communication of knowledge (a history of practical epistemology) - though he makes this readable through his focus on individual biographies.

The driving issue is that the more scholars there are, each working in specialised fields, the more information is generated and the more out of touch scholars become with each other. This has always been understood as a challenge, but the problem seems to get more extreme with every passing year. Polymaths are those who rise to the challenge. Some polymaths push at the ‘bleeding edge’ of several disciplines, others stand behind and mediate between specialisms or communicate general advances to the public.

Burke has been a leading historical sociologist, particularly focusing on intellectual history, for many decades. He is an example of the type of polymath that is keen on being up-to-date, spotting innovations and trends in intellectual history and ensuring they are shared with other scholars. To take just one example (but my favourite), after Paul Zanker used material culture (coins, monuments, &c) to demonstrate how the first Roman Emperor, Augustus, consciously exploited his ‘image’ for his social and imperial benefit. A few years later Burke produced a similar study, using the visual arts as a way of understanding the way Louis XIV of France made purposeful propagandistic use of his ‘image’. Burke took a specific study and helped popularise the method of integrating politics, history and the arts.

In this book Burke is focusing on information ‘overload’ and the way the world of information is organised, mediated and distributed. As the institutional and study methods develop the scholarly understanding of the world is transformed. In the last decade or so charting and understanding how this works has become an area of active study (Ann M Blair, William Clark, Chad Wellmon). Burke is lending support to this new type of intellectual history, setting out the key data to make it into a new field of study.

It is a bit of a survey book, but doesn’t really claim to be more. Be aware that the book does start slowly: the first couple of chapters list ancient, medieval and early Renaissance scholars simply listing the diverse subjects the wrote about. But from chapter 3 we get a bit more analysis and the issues become more engaging, thoughtful and familiar. I recommend it - but do persist as it does get more reflective and less list-like as it goes on.