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Lead book review

The genuine polymath is still one in a million

With unlimited information just a click away, everyone can pass as a polymath today, says Philip Hensher

16 May 2020

9:00 AM

16 May 2020

9:00 AM

The Polymath: A Cultural History from Leonardo da Vinci to Susan Sontag Peter Burke

Yale University Press, pp.352, 20

We live at a time of universal polymathy. We don’t know everything, but there’s not much difficulty in being able to discover any given truth. But it’s worth remembering just how hard it used to be to find things out. Thirty years ago if you wanted to research off your own bat it meant a trip to the public library — and perhaps filling out a form for an inter-library loan.

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