Consult the Index: The Good Stuff Is in the Back

The Story of an Underrated Information Technology: Reviewing ‘Index, a History of the’ by Dennis Duncan

If an author wanted an index, they had to pay for it. That’s what the legal department said when I started as an editor at Thomas Nelson Publishers. And sure enough: It was right there in the boilerplate. The relevant paragraph in the contract said the author was responsible.

But that shouldn’t be, I said. As a reader, I knew an index was invaluable. As …