The Mirror

"Melchior-Bonnet embellishes The Mirror with numerous surprising and compelling anecdotes. She describes Johannes Gutenberg plying his metallurgical skills to produce mirrors before turning to the printing press, and narrates how the Venetian Republic employed a combination of both subtle intimidation and outright assassination to protect its mirror-making secrets. Lewis Carroll's playful treatment of the mirror is contrasted to a short story of Rainer Maria Rilke, which describes the potential for madness within the reflective glass. The modern psyche's confusion in a world dominated by images is best captured by Andy Warhol's quip, "I am sure that I am going to look into the mirror and see nothing."" "The Mirror is cultural history at its best: a dazzling, virtuoso performance that readers of books like Carlo Ginzburg's The Cheese and the Worms or Robert Darnton's The Great Massacre will not be able to pass up."--BOOK JACKET.