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David King Dunaway, "A Four-Eyed World: How Glasses Changed the Way We See" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
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welcome to the New Books Network.
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
Hello, and welcome to another episode on the New Books Network. I'm one of your hosts, Dr. Miranda Melcher, and I'm very pleased today to be speaking with Dr. David Dunaway about his book titled A Four Eyed How Glasses Change the Way We See, published by Bloomsbury in 2026. Now, interestingly, despite the fact that many of us, myself and David included, wear glasses, this is in fact one of the very first books that investigates the experience of wearing glasses and contacts and their role in culture. So we're going to be going through kind of glasses now, but also glasses historically and how we got to the glasses we have now and the ways in which they have been controversial, the different reasons they've been controversial in the past, and kind of the developments we've gotten to to today, where glasses are sort of all over the place in a way that maybe we don't even think about. But as this book shows, there's quite a lot to think about and talk about. So, David, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
- [02:07]
Dr. David Dunaway
A pleasure.
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
Could you start us off by introducing yourself a little bit and tell us why you decided to write this book? What kinds of questions were you asking? How did the project develop?
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Dr. David Dunaway
Well, I'm a professor who teaches internationally and have written a number of biographies, including Aldous Huxley and Pete Seeger and others. And I suddenly found myself writing a biography of a device that most of us use almost all of us will eventually use and we overlook them. We disregard the fact that the device that is arguably for many of us the most important device we have in terms of our functioning in the and yet we don't ever take them off and take a second look. Now, I've been wearing glasses since I was five, so they have become a central part of my internal identity. I'm a glasses wearer. I even coined the term glassers for those of us who wear glasses or should be wearing them. And I find myself asking questions, the kind of questions many people who wear glasses might also ask. For example, why do they cost so much? Who invented them and where did they come from? And what's going to happen next? Are we going to all be wearing smart glasses? And what would that be? Tell us about how our life is going to change. When people pass us with these new smart glasses on and are suddenly able to stream, record audio of and send out everything that they see, is that going to change the way we look at the world? Because these smart glasses are already here and they're going to get better soon.
- [04:26]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
A whole bunch of questions then to investigate. And obviously we will do our best to at least touch on many of those things you've mentioned over the course of our discussion. But before we get to kind of the big cultural, societal, historical questions, I have a sort of more immediate thing I'd love to ask you about, which is one of the first things one encounters in reading this book is that one of the ways you've gone about answering these questions you've just mentioned is you decided to give up your own site to sort of think about what impacts that would have. Why did you decide to do that?
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Dr. David Dunaway
When I started writing A Four Eyed World, I found myself considering yet another question. And that is, how did people manage before we had eyeglasses? What did they do? And of course to really answer that question, I'd have to become a scholar of history two, 3,000 years ago. But I found that I could answer, begin to answer that in my own way by trying to put aside my own glasses. Now I am a minus 10 diopter handicap, which is, well, minus 5 diopters is considered heavily nearsighted. So you get some idea that I couldn't cross the road without them. And so for a week I just hid them in a corner, trying not to look at them too much and went about my business. And as readers of A Four Eyed World will discover, yes, that was a bit hazardous for somebody like me. There were accidents, other things I won't go into here, but I, in the end I felt that it was really important to have that experience in order to understand what it means to wear glasses.
- [06:33]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, I can honestly can't really imagine going without my glasses for a week. It's definitely, to those of us who wear them so often, feels like an extreme experiment, but a really interesting one to start to tackle some of these questions you've raised. So to go into some of the answers you came up with. What did people do before glasses and were any of the things they tried effective?
- [06:55]
Dr. David Dunaway
Well, lenses have been around for 3,000 years, initially as magnifiers, as ways to start fires, even as weapons by blinding opponents. In our nomadic days as a species, we needed a constant stream of food that obviously we did not raise. And that meant hunting, that meant cooking with plants and herbs and teas and individuals who didn't see well either they could see not at all. They could see things that are right close to them, like myself, or they could see things that are far away and not up close. They evolved to have different places in, in early human history. They were jewelry makers, they were artists, they were cooks. They, on the other hand, those with farsight would made excellent hunters. Well, I guess I have to say this now, unfortunately, those whose physical handicaps kept the tribe back because they ate, but they didn't produce food, well, they were ostracized. Sometimes they were left behind as the troop packed up and moved along. And that idea quite upset me. The idea that because of my genetics and other factors that I was given a role in society that maybe didn't fit me or simply left behind to die exposed because of my eyes. And well, this rather upset me as I contemplated that. But it all fell together in the context of understanding what it means to wear glasses in the book A Four Eyed World.
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, that's quite a long history indeed. And thinking about the sort of cultural and social impacts of glasses. Right. It's not just a piece of technology as those examples illustrate. When though, do we start to see something that maybe kind of looks like glasses as we have now? Like when does the four eyed world begin?
- [09:44]
Dr. David Dunaway
Good question. Well, I suppose we could start that with early devices that magnified. Very early, it was discovered that you could take a small globe of water and, and use it to magnify. As the light waves bent through the water, they created a larger image. Obviously every kid knows that if you squinch up your fist and look through it, you can see a little sharper even without lenses. But the Beginning of glasses, as we know, probably happened sometime in the 13th century when a monk who had been using a reading stone, a magnifier, something that he also used to start his fires when he wanted to eat. There were no cigarette lighters back then. He realized that he could see better with a magnifying glass and somebody at some point held two of them up at the same time and discovered binocular vision. Now, as to the precise history, it is a mystery which I've tried to solve in this book. Almost Certainly in the third quarter of the 13th century in Italy, and there's much debate about whether it's Pisa or Florence or Venice, somebody announced the existence of glasses. Now, mind you, in those days, mainly it was people in the church who were literate, who knew how to read. And for those people, glasses were most important. It would be important under many of the other circumstances I've just mentioned, but it's a particularly important moment when you're trying to read and copy a manuscript which many of those monks had as their central task all day long. So initially the four eyed world was limited to religious scribes, but very soon it began to spread.
- [12:19]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
And I mean, when you explain it that way, it makes total sense that of course it would be the scribes, right, that is, who is kind of doing the fine detailed work and is in, you know, they're in sheltered spaces, like they're not going to get broken and they've got the money for it. That sort of thing makes a lot of sense. Where are they spreading then? And was it sort of uniformly like, yay, this is a great idea, or were people weirded out by it? Like, what was the initial spread and expansion?
- [12:48]
Dr. David Dunaway
Well, initially it was a considered something of a miracle, except by the Church. The Catholic Church in the Middle Ages firmly believed that we should live with what God has given us. And that included weak eyes. Now, I don't quite know how they could justify that, but another way of looking at that same dilemma is that the Church wanted to maintain its power as the broker and deliverer of divine knowledge. And as more people could read and see clearly, it threatened them. And initially the church said things like, this is the devil's work, take what God has given you. Then, ironically, because these were handmade devices one upon a time, and we're talking about what's called rivet glasses here, and that's two lenses surrounded by wood that were held together by a rivet and handheld, if you tried to walk down the street with them, they'd fall right off so slowly into the 15th century, people began to encounter glasses peddlers on the street. After all, everyone over the age of 40, 45 notices an age related deterioration in their vision, sometimes called presbyopia. That's why we need reading glasses. The muscles in our focusing muscles in our lens become weak. We can't shift focus the way we used to. And so in particular close up work becomes a challenge. So this is true for everybody, regardless of their religion or ideology. People need glasses when they get older. And originally the way glasses were sold was out of a box and you told the peddler how old you were and he plucked a pair out and asked you to try them. The older you got, usually the more myopic or hyperopic farsighted you became. So that's the general spread. Once Gutenberg's a press was invented and printed documents became more common in Europe, why more people wanted to read them, literacy rose and with literacy, the need for reading glasses.
- [15:47]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
But if the church wasn't thrilled about this, did that mean that there were some instances where someone might kind of only use glasses in private and wouldn't use them in public? Like do we see a difference in adoption in, in those sorts of ways? Like oh wow, this person's wearing it in public. Oh, that's a big deal. But it's like, oh, but actually for hundreds of years people have been wearing them behind closed doors.
- [16:09]
Dr. David Dunaway
Yeah, I, I'd say that's not a bad assessment. There are different kinds or different sources of stigma against glasses and we'll, we'll get to that soon. Again, the main arguments among glasses were the ones I've just said that they diluted the power of the church. They may have been against God's will, but I think moving forward, what we need to know is that as soon as somebody invented glasses, somebody else decided they were not such a great idea. They were great for the bearers, but they revealed a physical weakness. And this was particularly relevant to women of childbearing age. And that was younger long ago because they worried that men would see them in glasses and well consider that that would be a challenge or weakness that could be passed on to their onspring. And there's some truth to that. Also wearing glasses, again particularly for women, revealed a certain aging process that many were not comfortable with. I, in this, in the four eyed world I've, I've tried to make the argument that these stigma are very old and outdated, but they've been around for centuries. If a woman in the 19th century was wearing glasses. She was immediately assumed to be a schoolteacher, a preacher or lay preacher. That is because the first glasses worn in the American colonies were called preacher's glasses because of the need to read the text in the church before the parishioners.
- [18:19]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Hmm, that's interesting to think about preachers being kind of the first adopters, as it were, about some of these things and the arguments against being in some ways very kind of gender specific.
- [18:33]
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- [18:59]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
other arguments about glasses, either historically or now that we want to add to the list?
- [19:05]
Dr. David Dunaway
Well, I have a whole chapter on this. Yes. Oddly enough, through the 17th century, eye doctors were some of them against prescribing glasses. They said that, well, it's obvious that two eyes is better than four, that putting on glasses leaves you vulnerable to things which approach you from the side which you simply can't see, or from behind to a lesser extent. But in our own time, that is. In the last 200 years, the prejudice has mainly focused on women. Now take today. If you go into a restaurant or a pub, you'll see people taking selfies. Well, what's the first thing that happens? Everybody whips off their glasses, go to a movie theater, and as the movie lights go down, the glasses come up because people are uncomfortable being seen in glasses. Now, I know this is changing, but that old saying of Dorothy Parker, men don't make passes at girls who, who wear glasses. Well, however true that is or isn't true today, there, it still hovers in the back of many people's minds. They're less attractive if they're wearing glasses. Now, glasses have gotten more cool, more diverse in style, and maybe a lot of that is going away. Nonetheless, it, it exists. And I think people have to consider this very important point. If you've been raised wearing glasses, how has it affected the way people have looked at you, what conclusions they've made about who you are based on the fact that you're wearing glasses? And conversely, when you hide your glasses, don't wear them, avoid them. How are you viewed differently if you think people think you're less attractive when you wear glasses? Well, first of all, you'll Be hesitant to wear them. And second of all, you'll internalize that and think poorly of yourself. There's also the issue of being teased and bullied people, children who need glasses, farsighted, nearsighted, start usually needing them in their 06789. And then you can be the odd girl out. You can be teased, the first one in your class with glasses. What's wrong with you? Four eyes. Four eyes everywhere. In Germany they call them glasses snakes. It's. It's a problem which comes out over and over in multiple cultures and societies, and it's one we need to recognize and address.
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
Well, potentially. One reason it comes up in so many different places is that it's very much embedded in literature, for one thing. So can you tell us about some of the ways that different authors at different points in. Have engaged with glasses?
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Dr. David Dunaway
Sure. When eyewear first began to appear, a whiff of sulfur or mystery hung over them. If glasses help people see, what other powers might they possess? Writers have imagined glasses revealing secrets, allowing 3D vision, performing magic. And part of this is their visibility. The New York Times once pointed out that glasses are more public than underwear because we wear them outside our clothes. I have a chapter looking at how across time in books, oh, from the Middle Ages into well into our own century, writers have not been able to resist the tendency to. To use glasses to characterize their subjects, their heroes, whether they're wearing them, whether they are more commonly avoiding them and thus stepping into tragedy. Glasses are a part of characters now in our own time. Harry Potter's wearing glasses, the first, arguably the first main pop culture figure who wears glasses and looks at them positively, as opposed to, say, Mr. Magoo. So books have reflected, as always, the tendency for larger social attitudes to continue into literature. Arthur Miller wrote a novel, for example, during World War II, when concerns about genuine anti Semitism were rising, he wrote a novel, Focus. It tells the story of a man who needs glasses. His boss requires him to get glasses, and yet somehow they made him look more Jewish. He was an Episcopalian, as it happens, and suddenly he began to receive, well, all kinds of hateful remarks and actions, all because he was wearing glasses.
- [25:20]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
I think that goes back to some of the points you were making earlier around societal stigma. They're definitely coming up and perhaps being embedded by these instances in literature. But of course, the visual element that we've emphasized so many times in this conversation, books may not be the place where those ideas are the most embedded. Can we talk a bit about actors on screen and what kinds of Portrayals and tropes we see around glasses, wearing there.
- [25:47]
Dr. David Dunaway
Absolutely. Glasses in films have evolved, just as perhaps our general social attitude has evolved. You know, glasses defined the nerds, Glasses defined the geeks, the people who were great to have a study party with but maybe not go out for dinner with afterwards because of the expectation of social awkwardness. The mad scientists and the Nazis are all wearing these wire rims. And then they're the librarians, aching to peel off their glasses and let down their hair to become real women once they doff the glasses. I mentioned Mr. Magoo, the patron fall guy of spectacle wearers. He rarely wore his glasses, so he became a walking disaster movie. Power lines fell, buildings tumbled. Rayana was accused of being a Mr. Magoo when she was wearing her large oversized glasses walking around New York City. The messages, though, in films can be contradictory. Because Santa Claus wears wire rims, librarians have the reputation of being quiet and perhaps even repressed. But suddenly without those glasses, they're hot. And we see many examples of famous characters who avoid wearing glasses on the screen. And probably the best known one is Marilyn Monroe in How to Marry a Millionaire, where she's always walking into closets and doors because she's terribly nearsighted but will not wear glasses around men. She even tries to hide her glasses in a strapless evening gown. I don't know quite how you do that, but I'm the wrong gender to answer that question.
- [28:06]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, those are some very visual tropes indeed. And yet we are seeing more people wear glasses really than ever before. Why is that?
- [28:14]
Dr. David Dunaway
Well, this is an environmental problem and it's a somewhat complex one. And I'll try and narrow it and narrow it down from the whole chapter I have discussing in a four eyed world, why and how we wear lenses. There are several reasons why people particularly grow myopic. First of all, we have a genetic inheritance from our parents. If they wear glasses, there's some high probability, particularly both of them wear glasses, that we will eventually be nearsighted or farsighted ourselves. But beyond genetics, we need to consider the use overuse, particularly for children with developing eyes, of what's called close work, that is staring with a screen next to your eyes, reading under a poor light, that old thing that your parents probably told you not to do, they were kind of right, as it turns out, because that strains create strains. Often it's not enough to affect the development of your eyes, but nonetheless it has some effect. But what accounts for really what is today a worldwide epic of myopia, of Nearsightedness is this. And listen for the simple answers you can do to help prevent it. In children and grandchildren, we are spending more and more time indoors as a species, as a society, we are pressured to read and write and watch. And these activities while taking us indoors are depriving us of bright sunlight. Now bright sunlight has a way of releasing something called radio retinal dopamine. And what that does is it slows the stretching of the eye, the eyeball. Someone that has an eyeball in the shape of a football is going to have a near sightedness all their lives. Somebody on the other hand, that has a, an eyeball in the shape of a doorknob will one of those, not the round ones, but the old fashioned ones, will instead find themselves moving towards being farsighted because of the way the eyes lens focuses light. If we want to make sure that our kids are not developing myopia, there are several paths we can take to control that development. One is through eye drops now available, which seem to limit the growth of the eyeball. Another is through young children wearing hard contact lenses, which has a similar effect. But the easiest and certainly least expensive way is to make sure children are spending two to three hours a day in bright sunlight. Now, if they want to go outside with their screens, if they want to bring a book and read, that's no problem. We need that sunlight to help our eyes grow normally. And that's the reason that in some Asian countries, for example, my book is coming out in Taiwan, because they're up to 95% percent of children are wearing glasses. And that reason is they're in environments that don't let in a great deal of sun. And because there's so much pressure for academic achievement that people are spending more and more time indoors. In the United States, the rate of myopia has doubled in the last 20 years. In China, it's up over 80%. Four out of five people now are wearing glasses. And that's one of the reasons why this book, A Four Eyed World is so important. It gives us a sense of not just what it means to wear glasses and how people have looked at you for wearing glasses, how they've rated you, but it reminds us of all the good things glasses can do to help society.
- [33:20]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
So where are we at then in terms of this perception side of glasses and what do you think this could mean in terms of where the glasses might be going in the future and how people might react to them?
- [33:32]
Dr. David Dunaway
More people are wearing, are needing them, so more people are wearing them. That is the simplest way to, to. To put it, the perceptions. I have a chapter in, in. In this book that describes the scientific research on how glasses wearers, glassers are rated. All the personality attributes that are given to them, all the way people have stereotyped them and make certain assumptions that because you wear glasses, you're well on your chemistry exam. So those are still there. They're still floating around. On the other hand, I meet people who say they always wanted glasses. They didn't have them when they were young because their eyes were developing naturally. They were spending time outdoors. That's the reason that today 1 out of 5 pair of glasses that are sold have no correction at all. People want it as a fashion statement. They want to be judged smart. Maybe they don't want the other judgments that come with glasses, such as a certain awkwardness, a certain, well, being out of touch with things and more focused on books. It's a mixed bag, this rating, and I think it's improving as glasses themselves are improving in terms of their ability to correct and in terms of the smart designer frames that we have available today.
- [35:25]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
And we will have to see certainly where and how glasses develop in the future. Is that the sort of thing you're continuing to look into or do you have any other areas of interest or projects, books or not, that you want to leave us with as a sneak peek?
- [35:41]
Dr. David Dunaway
Well, I think it's very important we discuss smart glasses and their introduction to society and how that is going to transform society. As I mentioned earlier, right now, when you walk down the street, people look at you, of course, or notice you, but they're not taking pictures of you and they're not recording your conversations and they're not taking the capacity unless they have smart glasses, and few people do. They're not streaming this home to mom or to the police or to anybody else. But we're in a time where privacy is increasingly hard to come by. Our web browsers gather more and more information about us. What if all that information was somehow stored in a database and presented to you off to the side in a little screen that hangs above your glasses that allowed you to, well, find somebody's marital status, find their economic status. And this is already beginning to happen with an outfit called Clear Vision, which has downloaded many, many profiles of individuals and now is feeding them back through smart glasses. So it's time before this technology becomes ubiquitous. It's time for us to create laws and procedures which help us understand what the meaning of having surveillance on the street and how we can opt out from that. And that's a tough question, but clearly,
- [37:40]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
as you've outlined, a very important one. So for anyone who wants to be thinking about these questions and kind of how we got to the stage point, the book we've been discussing is titled A Four Eyed How Glasses Changed the Way We See from Bloomsbury in 2026. David, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
- [37:58]
Dr. David Dunaway
It's been my pleasure.