David King Dunaway, "A Four-Eyed World: How Glasses Changed the Way We See" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

Feb 19, 2026

David King Dunaway, a cultural biographer who wrote A Four-Eyed World, reflects on a lifetime of wearing glasses and the research behind his book. He recounts living a week without glasses. He traces spectacles from medieval reading stones to modern smart-glasses. He explores stigma, fashion, film tropes, rising myopia, and privacy risks from augmented eyewear.

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ANECDOTE

Week Without Glasses Experiment

David King Dunaway hid his glasses for a week to experience life without them and understand their impact.
He describes hazards and accidents that showed how essential glasses are for heavy nearsightedness.

INSIGHT

Origin Among Medieval Scribes

Glasses likely originated in 13th-century Italy from reading stones adapted for binocular use.
Early adoption began among church scribes because reading and copying manuscripts required close vision.

INSIGHT

Church Resistance And Early Design

The medieval Catholic Church often opposed glasses as altering God's will and threatening its control over knowledge.
Handmade rivet glasses initially were fragile and mainly used in private or by specialists.

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Eyeglasses have become so commonplace we hardly think about them—unless we can’t find them. Yet glasses have been controversial throughout history. Roger Bacon pioneered using lenses to see and then spent a decade in a medieval prison for advocating that he could fix" God’s creations by improving our eyesight. Even today, people take off their glasses before having their picture taken, despite how necessary they are.

A Four-Eyed World: How Glasses Changed the Way We See (Bloomsbury, 2026) is the first book to investigate the experience of wearing glasses and contacts and their role in culture. Dr. David King Dunaway encourages readers to take a look at how they literally see the world through what they wear. He explores everything from the history of deficient eyesight and how glasses are made to portrayals of those who wear glasses in media, the stigma surrounding them, and the future of augmented and virtual reality glasses, highlighting how glasses have shaped, and continue to shape, who we are. Interwoven is Dr. Dunaway’s own experience of spending a week without his glasses, which he has used since childhood, to see the world around him and his newfound appreciation for his visual aids.

This is the story of how we see the world and how our ability to see things has evolved, ultimately asking: How have two cloudy, quarter-sized discs of crystal or glass originally riveted together become so essential to human existence? Shakespeare famously said eyes are windows to the soul, but what about people who see only by covering theirs with glasses? Readers will find out together through this fascinating and insightful cultural history of one of humanity’s greatest inventions.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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