The World in a Box

The Story of an Eighteenth-Century Picture Encyclopedia

By: Anke te Heesen, Ann M. Hentschel (Translator)

Write A Review

Paperback | 1 May 2002 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
244 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
23.09 x 15.38 x 1.55

Paperback

$103.75

or 4 interest-free payments of $25.94 with

Ships in 5 to 10 business days

This is a book about a box that contained the world. The box was the Picture Academy for the Young, a popular encyclopedia in pictures invented by preacher-turned-publisher Johann Siegmund Stoy in eighteenth-century Germany. Children were expected to cut out the pictures from the Academy, glue them onto cards, and arrange those cards in ordered compartments--the whole world filed in a box of images.

As Anke te Heesen demonstrates, Stoy and his world in a box epitomized the Enlightenment concern with the creation and maintenance of an appropriate moral, intellectual, and social order. The box, and its images from nature, myth, and biblical history, were intended to teach children how to collect, store, and order knowledge. te Heesen compares the Academy with other aspects of Enlightenment material culture, such as commercial warehouses and natural history cabinets, to show how the kinds of collecting and ordering practices taught by the Academy shaped both the developing middle class in Germany and Enlightenment thought. The World in a Box, illustrated with a multitude of images of and from Stoy's Academy, offers a glimpse into a time when it was believed that knowledge could be contained and controlled.

Industry Reviews

"This is a truly magnificent book - the most impressive histoire totale of an object that I have read. te Heesen provides a fascinating series of perspectives on the German bourgeois Enlightenment through minute study of the production, physical make-up, marketing, reviewing, and educational uses of Stoy's world in a box." - Nicholas Jardine, University of Cambridge

Shipping

	Standard Shipping	Express Shipping
Metro postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95
Regional postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95
Rural postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95

Orders over $79.00 qualify for free shipping.

How to return your order

At Booktopia, we offer hassle-free returns in accordance with our returns policy. If you wish to return an item, please get in touch with Booktopia Customer Care.

Additional postage charges may be applicable.

Defective items

If there is a problem with any of the items received for your order then the Booktopia Customer Care team is ready to assist you.

For more info please visit our Help Centre.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: "A Storehouse of the Finest Materials"
Book
The Work and Its Author
From the Manufacture of Books to teh Pedagogical Cabinet
Image
Sources and Structure of the Picture Academy for the Young
Man and His Image in the Eighteenth Century
Box
The Box and Collecting
The Box and Its Uses
Conclusion: The World Boxed In, Then and Now
Appendix: Bibliographic Record of the Picture Academy
Bibliography
Index
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

The World in a Box

The Story of an Eighteenth-Century Picture Encyclopedia

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

More in Science in General

Liars, cheats and copycats

Trickery and deception in nature

Alchemy

An Illustrated History of Elixirs, Experiments, and the Birth of Modern Science

Death by Comfort

How modern life is killing us and what we can do about it

The Burning Earth

An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years

The Knowledge Gene

The incredible story of the supergene that gives us human creativity

How Emotions Are Made

The Secret Life of the Brain

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power

The First Astronomers

How Indigenous Elders read the stars

Ferment

The Life-Changing Power of Microbes

A Little History of the Earth

Little Histories

Nexus

A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI

The Butterfly Thief

adventure, empire, and Australia's greatest museum heist

Dingo

The true story of Australia's most maligned native animal

When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows...

Common Knowledge and the Science of Harmony, Hypocrisy and Outrage

The AI Con

How To Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want

The Science of Beauty

Debunk the Myths and Discover What Goes into Your Beauty Routine

A Short History of Nearly Everything 2.0

Super Body

A 3-Week Program to Harness the New Science of Body Composition and Restore Your Youthful Contours

The Body A-Z

A fun, fascinating and family-friendly manual for the most important thing you own

Prove It

A Scientific Guide for the Post-Truth Era

A Periodic Tale: the bestselling life-long story of Australia's favourite science champion Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, shortlisted for the ABIA Biography of the Year 2025

My Sciencey Memoir

The Anxious Generation

How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

The Ageless Brain

How to Sharpen and Protect Your Mind for a Lifetime

The New Age of Sexism

How the AI Revolution is Reinventing Misogyny

This product is categorised by