The Island of the Day Before, p.380, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. From Leibniz's belief that the I Ching illustrated the principles of calculus to Marco Polo's mistaking a rhinoceros for a unicorn, Eco tours the labyrinth of intellectual history, illuminating the ways in which we project the familiar onto the strange. Absence is to love as wind is to fire: it extinguishes the little flame, it fans the big. In a careful unveiling of the fabulous and the false, Eco shows us how serendipities - unanticipated truths - often spring from mistaken ideas. Exploring the "Force of the False," Eco uncovers layers of mistakes that have shaped human history, such as Columbus's assumption that the world was much smaller than it is, leading him to seek out a quick route to the East via the West and thus fortuitously "discovering" America. Umberto Eco's latest work unlocks the riddles of history in an exploration of the "linguistics of the lunatic," stories told by scholars, scientists, poets, fanatics, and ordinary people in order to make sense of the world. New York : Columbia University Press, c1998 Serendipities Language and Lunacy, Author(s)-Umberto Eco and Translated by William Weaver, Publisher-Columbia University Press, ISBN-9780231111355. Serendipities : language & lunacy / Umberto Eco translated by William Weaver Book Bib ID
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