Burke is supposedly something of a specialist in the study of the history of knowledge, but his writing does not reflect it – it is detailed, but not thoughtful. Despite the prolific endnotes with which the text is populated, The Polymath suffers from the fate of many nonfiction books written with appeal to a general audience in mind, being rather dilute and shallow in its treatment and approach.
The Bookseller of Florence Review
To what extent do the books that come down to us from long ago do so because they are exceptional and there have been deliberate efforts to preserve them throughout the ages, and to what extent are they books that, by accident or happenstance, have happened to survive into the present?
Brunelleschi’s Dome Review
I took a course for which this book served as a kind of textbook, which I loved in theory, but found very difficult in practice.
Scattered
It was probably in the sixth or seventh grade that I first can recall being referred to as a "renaissance man." Like many of the appelations which have been applied to me throughout the years, I adopted this one and made it my own.
IGC Publishing 