Decoding the Hand. Richard Fidler in conversation with Alison Bashford

Why did Isaac Newton read palmistry books? Alison Bashford discusses her new book, in the town in which it was written.

Join historian and broadcaster Richard Fidler in conversation with Alison Bashford in this special Bundanoon event.

Decoding the Hand is an astonishing history of science, medicine and magic, of an enduring search for how our bodily surfaces might reveal an inner self—a soul, a character, an identity. From sixteenth-century occult physicians influenced by the Kabbalah to twentieth-century geneticists, and from criminologists to eugenicists, award-winning historian Alison Bashford takes us on a remarkable journey into the strange world of hand readers, revealing how signs on the hand—its shape, lines, marks, and patterns—have been elaborately decoded over the centuries.

Photo © Nicole Marie Piercy