England has dropped behind in most lines of production, but there is at least one in which she is way out front. No country comes close to her per-capita output of autobiographies. If the current growth curve continues, she’ll soon be turning out more autobiographies than people.
It’s not that England lacks competition. In all Western and most Westernized countries, the writing, publishing, and even reading of autobiographies are in spate. That must be a symptom of something. In the millennia prior to 1400, only one autobiography was written. The first recorded use of the word “autobiography” was in 1809.
Comments