Everything Explained That Is Explainable: On the Creation of the Encyclopaedia Britannica's Celebrated Eleventh Edition, 1910-1911

Everything Explained That Is Explainable is the audacious, utterly improbable story of the publication of the Eleventh Edition of the legendary Encyclopædia Britannica. It is the tale of a young American entrepreneur who rescued a dying publication with the help of a floundering newspaper, and in so doing produced a series of books that forever changed the face of publishing. Thanks to the efforts of 1,500 contributors, among them a young staff of university graduates as well as some of the most distinguished names of the day, the Eleventh Edition combined scholarship and readability in a way no previous encyclopedia had (or ever has again). Denis Boyles’s work of cultural history pulls back the curtain on the 44-million-word testament to the age of reason that has profoundly shaped the way we see the world.

Denis Boyles is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry, travel, humor, essays, and criticism. He is a veteran magazine editor, and currently a coeditor of The Fortnightly Review. Boyles teaches journalism and political science at the Institut Catholique d’Études Supérieures in La Roche-sur-Yon, France.
www.denisboyles.com