Left-handers have been described as a people without a history. This special issue provides scholarly analyses of aspects of asymmetry in history from the Renaissance to the 20th Century. Lauren Harris presents three studies describing: An 1811 American child-care manual for parents fearing lest their children should be left-handed; Manuals on swordsmanship from the Renaissance onwards describing the accepted minority of left-handed swordsmen a minority that still dominates the Olympics; The enigmatic bias whereby parents use their left arm to carry babies; Janet Snowman and Stephen Christman present two papers on left-handed musical geniuses: William Crotch the self-taught 18th Century musical prodigy whose unconventional left-handed playing styles stimulate many questions about the asymmetries of stringed instruments;Jimi Hendrix the 20th Century left-handed guitarist of whom Robert Krieger said … he was just so different. He just came from such a left-field place.Chris Mc Manus Richard Rawles James Moore and Matthew Freegard describe an early BBC TV programme presented in 1953 by Jacob Bronowski on right and left-handedness. In an early example of viewer participation 6000 people sent postcards describing their handedness and also their perceptions of a mystery picture that was the duck-rabbit figure from Wittgenstein’s recently published Philosophical Investigations. Chris Mc Manus and Janet Snowman describe A left-handed compliment a newly discovered lithograph by John Lewis Marks (ca. 1795-6 - ca. 1857-61). Given Marks’ seeming love of vulgarity for its own sake there is probably an obscene sub-text reminiscent of a Donald Mc Gill postcard. |The Right Hand and the Left Hand of History A Special Issue of Laterality
