New World Man

Glenn Reynolds has an interview up with Neal Stephenson today at Tech Central Station.

Glenn wrote a column last week reflecting on Stephenson's Quicksilver and the renewed interest in the 17th century, which was the hatching ground for the Enlightenment ideals that helped form our liberal, capitalist, secular society.
Many of the criticisms I have seen of Quicksilver are aimed at the multiple narrative asides into the minutiae of 17th century life. But it was exactly those kinds of asides in Cryptonomicon that really turned me on to his writing.

I thoroughly enjoyed Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash and look forward to plowing my way through Stephenson's latest.

I'll have more comments on the Enlightenment in a later post on the separation of church and state.