How the index helps us to understand, categorise and engage with the world (historytoday.com)

Further to the opening paragraph, a claim to fame: I once folded (former British prime minister) Harold Macmillan’s underpants. Long retired and Lord Stockton by then.

Kurt Vonnegut reportedly sat next to an indexer on a plane once, who convinced him of the value of indexes. After that he made sure his novels had indexes

One of the first things I bookmark in every PDF I read is the index. When it's a click away, it becomes especially valuable.

The ultimate ode to the index would be Nabokov's "Pale Fire", in which the rereader is encouraged to have three books open, one for the index, one for the place where you are, and another for your lookups.

Discussed previously at this review https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/arts-and-books/the-radica...