Treasures New & Old; Gestures

Several years ago, the Blaine County Library withdrew from circulation a thick book titled Gestures. I found this book on the cart in the library entryway.

Never before having seen anything on this topic, I gave the librarian my 25 cents and took the book home.

How could I guess what to expect? The book was a surprise in more ways than one.

Four scholars from Oxford University in England had made a detailed, in fact, minute, scholarly study in a branch of anthropology seldom explored.

Let me quote the first sentences of the Preface: “The importance of human gestures has been greatly underestim...