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Inventing the World: Venice and the Transformation of Western Civilization
An epic cultural journey that reveals how Venetian ingenuity and inventions—from sunglasses and forks to bonds and currency—shaped modernity.
How did a small, isolated city—with a population that never exceeded 100,000, even in its heyday—come to transform western civilization? Acclaimed anthropologist Meredith Small, the author of the groundbreaking Our Babies, Ourselves examines the the unique Venetian social structure that was key to their explosion of creativity and invention that ranged from the material to social.
Whether it was boats or money, medicine or face cream, opera, semicolons, tiramisu or child-labor laws, these all originated in Venice and have shaped contemporary notions of institutions and conventions ever since. The foundation of how we now think about community, health care, money, consumerism, and globalization all sprung forth from the Laguna Veneta.
But Venice is far from a historic relic or a life-sized museum. It is a living city that still embraces its innovative roots. As climate change effects sea-level rises, Venice is on the front lines of preserving its legacy and cultural history to inspire a new generation of innovators.
How did a small, isolated city—with a population that never exceeded 100,000, even in its heyday—come to transform western civilization? Acclaimed anthropologist Meredith Small, the author of the groundbreaking Our Babies, Ourselves examines the the unique Venetian social structure that was key to their explosion of creativity and invention that ranged from the material to social.
Whether it was boats or money, medicine or face cream, opera, semicolons, tiramisu or child-labor laws, these all originated in Venice and have shaped contemporary notions of institutions and conventions ever since. The foundation of how we now think about community, health care, money, consumerism, and globalization all sprung forth from the Laguna Veneta.
But Venice is far from a historic relic or a life-sized museum. It is a living city that still embraces its innovative roots. As climate change effects sea-level rises, Venice is on the front lines of preserving its legacy and cultural history to inspire a new generation of innovators.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
336 pages, Hardcover
Published December 1, 2020
45 people are currently reading
156 people want to read
About the author
Meredith Small
7 books42 followersMeredith F. Small is a science journalist, anthropologist, professor emerita Cornell University, and a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. Although well known for her award winning magazine writing, she is also the author of several trade books that take an anthropological look at parenting, sexuality, and mental illness. Her book Our Babies, Ourselves has been called a "cult classic" for parents, health professionals, and anyone interested in parenting styles. Meredith's latest book is"Inventing the World; Venice and the Transformation of Western Culture" ( Pegasus Books) is about a list of over 200 inventions and creative ideas that originated in Venice and how they affected our modern view.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 21, 2022
‘Many of these Venetian firsts were still with us, part of the fundamentals of Western culture, how we think and how we operate.’
Disappointing. Want to like this book because I agree with its premise. Too much padding, too many opinions disguised as fact, awkward presentation.
‘Today we anthropologists call that cultural indoctrination a belief system.’
Belongs on the same shelf as How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe and How the Scots Invented the Modern World. Simply reading Wikipedia supports Small’s major argument. Much of the rest is hyperbole and fluff; entertaining but didactic.
‘According to Marx, capitalism contains within it the “seeds of its own destruction” as the rich overreach, consolidate their power and grip, and choke off their own economic growth. Venice was, in fact, a prime example of Marx’s philosophy.’
Cynical, socialist take on capitalism, innovation, and property rights. Skip the first chapter; you’ll read her opinions on creativity and humanism many more times. Uses statistics to inflate, not to inform.
‘Today there are 6.5 million people in Italy.’ (more like 65 million), ‘As imaginary, as we do today as we do with online transfers.’ (huh?), ‘This book is not just for Venetofiles.’ (ph, not f), ‘they perfected the thermometer” (invented), ‘When John Quincy Adams … as he helped give birth to the United States.” (John, not John Quincy, his son), ‘The city of Trieste, north of Venice’ (east), ‘Some doctors proscribed electrotherapy’ (proscribed?).
Needs another proof reading. Many errors of history, geography, and grammar. Reads as if translated from a foreign language. Awkward verb choices knock the reader out of the narrative trying to decipher the meaning. Many foreign phrases not translated.
‘And we, now Homo consumerensis, have to decide if we are thankful for that example or furious about it and need to stop buying all this stuff to save ourselves and the planet.’
Disappointing. Want to like this book because I agree with its premise. Too much padding, too many opinions disguised as fact, awkward presentation.
‘Today we anthropologists call that cultural indoctrination a belief system.’
Belongs on the same shelf as How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe and How the Scots Invented the Modern World. Simply reading Wikipedia supports Small’s major argument. Much of the rest is hyperbole and fluff; entertaining but didactic.
‘According to Marx, capitalism contains within it the “seeds of its own destruction” as the rich overreach, consolidate their power and grip, and choke off their own economic growth. Venice was, in fact, a prime example of Marx’s philosophy.’
Cynical, socialist take on capitalism, innovation, and property rights. Skip the first chapter; you’ll read her opinions on creativity and humanism many more times. Uses statistics to inflate, not to inform.
‘Today there are 6.5 million people in Italy.’ (more like 65 million), ‘As imaginary, as we do today as we do with online transfers.’ (huh?), ‘This book is not just for Venetofiles.’ (ph, not f), ‘they perfected the thermometer” (invented), ‘When John Quincy Adams … as he helped give birth to the United States.” (John, not John Quincy, his son), ‘The city of Trieste, north of Venice’ (east), ‘Some doctors proscribed electrotherapy’ (proscribed?).
Needs another proof reading. Many errors of history, geography, and grammar. Reads as if translated from a foreign language. Awkward verb choices knock the reader out of the narrative trying to decipher the meaning. Many foreign phrases not translated.
‘And we, now Homo consumerensis, have to decide if we are thankful for that example or furious about it and need to stop buying all this stuff to save ourselves and the planet.’
January 30, 2021
WHEN YOUR EDITORS AND PUBLISHER SELL YOU DOWN THE CANAL...
The author is a nice person, has lots of friends, and wrote a pretty interesting book.
(and maybe that's all you need to know, because the rest is a rant...)
She also wrote three pages of acknowledgments about how many people helped her, encouraged her, edited her, and hooked her up with a literary agent and a successful proposal, picked up by a name publisher.
But NOBODY could be bothered to proofread this book???? WTF.
All the more surprising because the author is Professor Emerita, Cornell, and tells you so in her bio.
And, she publishes a book heavily cross-indexed with footnotes, a bibliography and index reminiscent of a peer-reviewed professional journal. But no journal would accept this work in the condition that Pegasus published it and in which Simon & Schuster distributed it.
The text is riddled with typos. Some of them like, "United State of America" would have been funny if someone like David Sedaris wrote it with intended irony. Others, like a whole page of discussion of an Italian guy named "Soro" but half the time typeset as "Soros" are just plan sloppy.
Ironically, THIS book has an entire section on "Typography and Punctuation," in which Dr. Small allows as how, "The recent invention of computers and digitization makes this process even easier and faster, and potentially mistake-free because of cut, paste, and spellcheck."
And, evidently, that's how this book came to market riddled with typos and mistakes, possibly 'spell-checked' but never seen by a certified copyeditor, never beta-read, and apparently with galleys un-proofed...because hey, it's been spellchecked, what do you expect? But, I don't think Dr. Small would ever let one of her grad students get away with a spell-checked thesis submission. For example, a little Global Search on her own manuscript would trip over the word "ides." It brings up a typo where she is intending to say, 'tides of time' but ends up with 'ides of time' instead. Channeling David Sedaris again. And that's why any (real) editor will tell you, "proof-read, proof-read, proof-read every little thing." Spell-check is like basting a seam; it's not for a walk on the runway.
Dr. Small, I expect a lot more. From a published professor retired from a name-brand university. From a manuscript published by a recognizable international distributor. Maybe, neither you nor I should be surprised about the publisher...google Pegasus as I did...people often ask if Pegasus is a vanity press? ...in which case maybe your posse let you down by letting you go there. At $27.95 USD suggested retail, I could have hoped for some illustrations (another reviewer's point well taken, at this price point anyway.) I do know that I PAID for a clean text and didn't get it, not even close. I got a poorly edited book on pulp-cheap paper.
I'll leave you on a positive Note, Dr. Small. I hope you do well enough to get a second printing. And, if you do, insist that the text be edited (lightly) and proofed (heavily) because you deserve that and I think your readers do too. I think your book would have been worth 5 stars if it had been produced with better interiors; a more interesting typeface (since that would have been in sync with what you were writing about); a reasonable number of illustrations (it's all about the beauty and the originality, why not curate a little of that to show to your reader); and an appropriate choice of paper (to show off your clean, well-written text).
The author is a nice person, has lots of friends, and wrote a pretty interesting book.
(and maybe that's all you need to know, because the rest is a rant...)
She also wrote three pages of acknowledgments about how many people helped her, encouraged her, edited her, and hooked her up with a literary agent and a successful proposal, picked up by a name publisher.
But NOBODY could be bothered to proofread this book???? WTF.
All the more surprising because the author is Professor Emerita, Cornell, and tells you so in her bio.
And, she publishes a book heavily cross-indexed with footnotes, a bibliography and index reminiscent of a peer-reviewed professional journal. But no journal would accept this work in the condition that Pegasus published it and in which Simon & Schuster distributed it.
The text is riddled with typos. Some of them like, "United State of America" would have been funny if someone like David Sedaris wrote it with intended irony. Others, like a whole page of discussion of an Italian guy named "Soro" but half the time typeset as "Soros" are just plan sloppy.
Ironically, THIS book has an entire section on "Typography and Punctuation," in which Dr. Small allows as how, "The recent invention of computers and digitization makes this process even easier and faster, and potentially mistake-free because of cut, paste, and spellcheck."
And, evidently, that's how this book came to market riddled with typos and mistakes, possibly 'spell-checked' but never seen by a certified copyeditor, never beta-read, and apparently with galleys un-proofed...because hey, it's been spellchecked, what do you expect? But, I don't think Dr. Small would ever let one of her grad students get away with a spell-checked thesis submission. For example, a little Global Search on her own manuscript would trip over the word "ides." It brings up a typo where she is intending to say, 'tides of time' but ends up with 'ides of time' instead. Channeling David Sedaris again. And that's why any (real) editor will tell you, "proof-read, proof-read, proof-read every little thing." Spell-check is like basting a seam; it's not for a walk on the runway.
Dr. Small, I expect a lot more. From a published professor retired from a name-brand university. From a manuscript published by a recognizable international distributor. Maybe, neither you nor I should be surprised about the publisher...google Pegasus as I did...people often ask if Pegasus is a vanity press? ...in which case maybe your posse let you down by letting you go there. At $27.95 USD suggested retail, I could have hoped for some illustrations (another reviewer's point well taken, at this price point anyway.) I do know that I PAID for a clean text and didn't get it, not even close. I got a poorly edited book on pulp-cheap paper.
I'll leave you on a positive Note, Dr. Small. I hope you do well enough to get a second printing. And, if you do, insist that the text be edited (lightly) and proofed (heavily) because you deserve that and I think your readers do too. I think your book would have been worth 5 stars if it had been produced with better interiors; a more interesting typeface (since that would have been in sync with what you were writing about); a reasonable number of illustrations (it's all about the beauty and the originality, why not curate a little of that to show to your reader); and an appropriate choice of paper (to show off your clean, well-written text).
April 9, 2022
A good book that should have been a great one
The subject is intriguing and most deserving of coverage, but this book needed more disciplined writing and more rigorous editing, both of content and of copy. Too many sloppy mistakes and inaccuracies mar the reading experience.
The subject is intriguing and most deserving of coverage, but this book needed more disciplined writing and more rigorous editing, both of content and of copy. Too many sloppy mistakes and inaccuracies mar the reading experience.
August 26, 2025
I’d give it a 3.5 star review if I could. Very informative book, but the facts or opinions seemed to be just thrown out there without weaving a flowing story. Maybe my interpretation of the flow of the story was distracted by all the inventions?
October 13, 2021
Interesting but a bit of a mess
I’ve read a few books about Venice, and I’d definitely recommend a more traditional history than this one- and there are plenty that are very readable. This book just felt disjointed with bizarre overly long anthropological descriptions of terms like “community” which was hardly necessary for the rest of the chapter in Venice specifically. It was a framing method that just didn’t work. And then some chapters just seem to leap from topic to topic almost to get out “oh Venice also contributed to this thing and this other thing and oh yeah before I forget this thing.” You can get the same fun facts out of a more narrative history while also feeling a sense of story and continuity that this book severely lacks.
I’ve read a few books about Venice, and I’d definitely recommend a more traditional history than this one- and there are plenty that are very readable. This book just felt disjointed with bizarre overly long anthropological descriptions of terms like “community” which was hardly necessary for the rest of the chapter in Venice specifically. It was a framing method that just didn’t work. And then some chapters just seem to leap from topic to topic almost to get out “oh Venice also contributed to this thing and this other thing and oh yeah before I forget this thing.” You can get the same fun facts out of a more narrative history while also feeling a sense of story and continuity that this book severely lacks.
September 23, 2023
There are too many typos.
August 27, 2021
I thought the first chapter not necessary as if the author had to give the book an academic gloss when the book stands well on its own and anyone who has been to Venice or wants to go should read this book and take notes so that they do not miss anything when they go or if they have gone what they missed. I know now why Venice has the Venice Bienanale. So, I absolutely loved this book and I read it twice and the second time I took notes as the book a wealth of knowledge. The author learned how to navigate a gondola which was also great!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews