[A] richly rewarding pendant volume. . . . Babel in Russian’s horizon is modern Russian literature and culture, but its scholarly contribution finally has more to do with the wealth of information it collects and constellates than an argument that begins with Nimrod and ends with A. R. Ammons. The overriding effect of the intricate web of connections Meisel weaves in Babel in Russianis to suggest that the realization of the sublimity the Tower was intended to embody is finally to be found not in the imagined edifice but in its ongoing reception in Western culture.

Modern Philology

This is a lucid and erudite study of one of the defining myths of western culture. Martin Meisel is a superb guide through the broad and often contradictory implications of the Babel story, and its long history of adaptation and interpretation, culminating in its appearance as a great enabling trope in modernist literature.

Stephen Orgel, Stanford University

As a follow-up to Chaos Imagined, Martin Meisel explores how language and chaos make and unmake each other. Babel is another coruscating contribution shot through with Meisel's sly humor and extraordinary erudition.

R. Darren Gobert, Duke University

'Chaos is come again!' predicts Othello. Nothing daunted, Martin Meisel plunges directly into the linguistic and intellectual chaos figured by the Tower of Babel in order to make sense of it. Paradoxically, his account is eminently lucid, illuminated by flashes of wit and pyrotechnic displays of erudition. The breadth of coverage extends from drama to architecture, with an equally impressive range of reference. Cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary, this is a masterfully researched, exquisitely written exploration of one of culture’s most slippery concepts.

Laurence Senelick, Tufts University

This book reaches back into a Biblical past—Babel as origin of “linguistic chaos”—with a theoretical panache that illuminates the present. Because Meisel is supremely well versed in areas ranging from visual art and architecture to literature, theater and cinema, he can mine Shakespeare, Moliere, Bruegel, Joyce, Metropolis, and Blade Runner for gems of lucidity.From “mutual incomprehension,” Meisel finds—or creates—meaning in a manner that is linguistically playful as well as philosophically profound.

Annette Insdorf, Columbia University

Meisel’s book should be read by everyone who takes the study of language seriously. Against the background of the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, Meisel examines language as an instrument of order and of chaos at the same time.The author’s remarkable erudition and analysis extend from Sumerian literature to “Blade Runner,” and much in between.

David Sperling, Hebrew Union College