City of Words
2007
First Published
3.65
Average Rating
178
Number of Pages
The end of ethnic nationalism—building societies that promote civic nationalism with universally accepted value systems—seems eminently sensible. But something is going wrong. In these 2007 Massey Lectures, Alberto Manguel takes a fresh look at the problems that come with creating new societies. Race riots in France, political murder in The Netherlands, bombings in Britain—all appear to be symptoms of a multicultural experiment gone awry. Politicians and sociologists are puzzled; why is it so hard for people to live together given the grim alternatives? Is blood still more important than peaceful coexistence? In The City of Words Manguel proposes a different approach: look at what writers have to say—maybe books and stories hold secret keys to the human heart, keys that social planners can’t find. With his trademark wit and erudition, Manguel suggests looking on the library shelf marked “fiction” for the book titled How to Build a Better Society.
Avg Rating
3.65
Number of Ratings
813
5 STARS
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4 STARS
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3 STARS
28%
2 STARS
11%
1 STARS
2%
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Author
Alberto Manguel
Author · 27 books
Alberto Manguel (born 1948 in Buenos Aires) is an Argentine-born writer, translator, and editor. He is the author of numerous non-fiction books such as The Dictionary of Imaginary Places (co-written with Gianni Guadalupi in 1980) and A History of Reading (1996) The Library at Night (2007) and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey: A Biography (2008), and novels such as News From a Foreign Country Came (1991). Manguel believes in the central importance of the book in societies of the written word where, in recent times, the intellectual act has lost most of its prestige. Libraries (the reservoirs of collective memory) should be our essential symbol, not banks. Humans can be defined as reading animals, come into the world to decipher it and themselves.
