INDEX, A HISTORY OF THE A Bookish Adventure From Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age By Dennis Duncan Illustrated. 344 pages. W.W. Norton & Company. $30. Before reading “Index, A History of ...

William King’s “A Short Account of Dr. Bentley, By Way of Index” is included in the final pages of a book most often referred to as “Boyle against Bentley” (1698).

Done well, an index, that list in the back of a book containing its concepts and references, is either hugely helpful, sending you directly to the mentions of, say, Theodore Roosevelt’s dog Pete ...