The current handwringing and doomsaying in academia concerning the study of humanities and its support, especially in the United States, makes Rens Bod’s book not only an interesting read, but also timely and ambitious.

The two-part question that is asked of professors in the humanities today is what prompts Bod’s work, namely, what makes up the study of the humanities and what does a person do by studying it? Bod states that “the humanities are the disciplines that are taught and studied at humanities faculties” (2) around the world. However flippant his assertion seems, it serves a specific need, which is paring down the humanities to a more manageable size by eliminating philosophy (though not logic) and theology from his study — because in Bod’s view many institutions do not consider them part of the humanities. (A brief survey of colleges and universities in the United States does not show this to be accurate, as it pertains to philosophy; the shift from theology to religion or religious studies muddies Bod’s claim.) Bod answers the second part of the question by arguing that there is historical precedent that shows how the humanities are responsible for advances in modern science and technology; he asserts that they are, in fact, the historical foundation of the sciences. Bringing his thesis into focus, he claims that the history of the humanities consists of a continuous “quest for principles and patterns” (7), and that his study must therefore be highly comparative and selective in nature.

In order to prove such a specific claim, Bod first reduces the history of the humanities to four chronological eras: antiquity, the Middle Ages, the early modern, and modern. Then he further narrows his history into eight “studies” categories: art theory, historiography, linguistics (Bod’s specialty), logic, musicology, philology, poetics, and rhetoric — in the medieval period Bod connects rhetoric with poetics. The unique aspect of his work is not necessarily the categories he uses, but rather the broader, global aspect that he attempts to bring to them. Specifically, he attempts to show how the humanities can and ought to be understood as a global phenomenon, not strictly a Western one. For Bod, Eastern humanistic activity by Panini in India (fourth century BCE), Liu Xie in China (fifth century CE), or Sibawayh in Baghdad (eighth century CE) is just as important as that by Herodotus (fifth century BCE), Saint Augustine (354–430 CE), Angelo Poliziano (fifteenth century CE), and Noam Chomsky (b. 1928) in what is the Western European tradition, to give only a few names.

Yet as with any far-reaching work, there are places in the book that are more convincing than others. Since Bod is a linguist and a musicologist, the corresponding sections of his work are highly learned and careful throughout each era. His analysis and discussion of the remaining divisions of studies — philology, poetics, rhetoric, historiography, art theory, and logic — are not always insightful or thorough. Particularly notable is the light treatment of the fluctuations in normative intellectual constructions that influence all of these studies. Bod acknowledges this treatment early on, presenting his method as a response to Dilthey and Windelband. The result, however, is the creation of large gaps in the development of a given study in a given era. These lacunae force the reader of his work to question his earlier assertion about the humanities, especially removing philosophy while retaining logic, and reducing each category to a study that focuses on principles and patterns — to say nothing of attempting to globalize Western European historical concepts like antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and modernity.

While Bod’s verve is to be commended, his methodology leaves him a bit short in reaching his ambitious goal: a new history of the humanities. By reducing the humanities into strict categories, Bod implies the “we are science too” theory. Claiming that finding patterns and principles is the reason humanities is important belittles the means of discovery, the evolution of thought, and the very tangled yet real history of influence. While Bod’s work shows that the humanities can be viewed scientifically, this comes at the cost of omitting valuable cultural differences and changes. The great silver lining here is that Bod’s work helps to emphasize this very aspect of the humanities by its absence. As a result he leaves the opportunity for other scholars to take up where he leaves off, bridging these gaps to create fuller historical narratives while maintaining an emphasis on the importance of patterns, principles, and comparative humanistic achievement. To this end, Bod’s work is timely, useful, and ambitious, and a new history worth reading.