Greek Civilization Through the Eyes of Travellers and Scholars (review)

In the conclusion to Through the Reading Glass the author cites Roger Chartier, The Cultural Origins of the French Revolution, in which he writes that “while books themselves do not make revolutions, the ways they are made, used, and read just might” (205). Diaconoff agrees and asserts that “acts of reading can produce profound changes in society,” noting “the quiet revolution in women’s reading” during the eighteenth century (205). She is instructive and persuasive in illustrating the motivations underlying the uses of reading and writing by eighteenth-century women and how their culture differed from ours. She explains that the reading glass of the title is a metaphor used to show how a book culture was developed for women and by women in eighteenth-century France, for, as she phrases it, “the reading glass is to the book as the book was to women, opening up both a world and a wealth of ideas perhaps unsuspected at first glance” (209). Diaconoff’s enlightening book is well documented with a useful bibliography and index. Through the Reading Glass should appeal to readers interested not only in books, reading, writing, and women’s roles but also in how these areas were related and interwoven during one of the pivotal cultural periods in modern history.