Part I. Mind, word and world: 1. Knowing, referring and recording: storing information beyond the brain
2. Information and World 3: in the beginning was the Word
Part II. The Ancient World: 3. Containers of knowledge: the first reference technologies
4. Systems for knowledge: school and letter, book and library
5. The taxonomic urge: class, classic and classification
6. Missionaries and monasteries: reference and reverence
Part III. The Medieval World: 7. Faith versus reason: summations of truth
8. The elites of knowledge: universitas
Part IV. The Early Modern World: 9. All knowledge for all men: the omne scibile and the printing press
10. Theme versus alphabet: the roots of lexicography
11. A blurring of languages: Latin and the vernaculars
Part V. The Modern World: 12. The legislative urge: authoritative wordbooks
13. Reference and revolution: the encyclopedia proper
14. Thematic lexicography: word order and world order
15. Alphabetic lexicography: the unendable dictionary
16. Universal education: dictionaries for the people
17. Semantic fields and conceptual universes: the unshapeable lexis
18. Tensions and trends: overt alphabet, covert theme
Part VI. Tomorrows World: 19. Shaping things to come: the priests of High Technology
20. Knowledge, knowledge everywhere: planetary network, global book.
