As much as the text was enlightening and the voice melodic, I didn't find quite as many knaves, fools, OR madmen as the book coyly promised. I counted: 12 knaves, 18 fools, and only 6 madmen. Six! Surely there have to be more. By my count, I can think of 45 madmen in 1710 alone. Who could forget Pierre the Bullfrog? Or Etienne the Malodorous? Their impacts on the eighteenth century French Court created a whirlwind of politics and set the French Renaissance into a tizzy. And while I'm at it, I didn't find the effluvium quite as subtle as the title suggested. The effluvium beat me senseless and left me by the roadside. I hope that all future effluvium will behoove itself to act in a more dignified, subtle manner.

A travesty. Schwartz, in this book, does nothing but reformulate older theories and water them down in a text that should be titled "The Idiot's Guide to the Copy."
Although passing himself off as a scholar, Schwartz has never been able to receive tenure at any college or university. Simplisitic accounts of what could otherwise be a fascinating philosophical study do little to further his reputation.

This is an excellent book that could have been much much more. Our current ability to create a world of likenesses and copies has changed the way we look at the world. And this well written work discusses just how many issues, from twins, to copied documents, to ethnolographic film, are informed by our search for the "real" in a world of "copies." Yet this work never becomes anything more than a well written, entertaining series of well-selected anecdotes. The philosophical issues, the absurdity of any idea of "identity" or metaphysical "difference," in a world in which identities are fabricated, is never touched upon. This work could have been a philosophical tome, changing the way I thought; unfortunately it only made me chuckle at how people have been confused by twins