Novelty
A History of the New
- Contents
- Review Quotes
- Awards

"Witty, sophisticated, and sharply written, Michael North's Novelty: A History of the New tackles the oxymorons lurking in the subtitle with gusto and a wide scope of learning, ranging from the classical Greeks to Modernist writers like Pound to the art criticism of the 1960s and 1970s. In exploring the multiple valences and models of the new, North accomplishes that most elusive of achievements: explaining how something can at once be new and old, recurrent and unexpected. Highly recommended not just for academics but for the general reader as well."
"In this ambitious and admirable book, Michael North invites us to look anew at the very idea of the new. Ranging across philosophy, science, and art, he teases out the recurring patterns that shape our sense of how newness comes into the world. Under the pressure of North's sharp gaze and remarkably lucid prose, novelty turns out to be more familiar and yet more surprising than we had known it to be. This is a major contribution to intellectual history."
Modern Language Association of America: MLA - James Russell Lowell Prize
Honorable Mention
Dedalus Foundation: Robert Motherwell Book Award
Won
History: History of Ideas
Literature and Literary Criticism: General Criticism and Critical Theory
Philosophy: Aesthetics
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