In this eye-opening history, Travis Elborough traces the evolution of spectacles from their primitive origins as visual aids for monkish scribes to the designer eyewear of today, and even the augmented reality of Google Glass. While looking through lorgnettes, monocles, le pince-nez, tortoise shell Windsors and Ray Ban aviator shades, he considers philosophical arguments about the limits of perception by Greek thinkers, encounters medieval Italian glassmakers and myopic Renaissance rulers, and visits spectacle makers in the London of Samuel Pepys, Dr. Johnson, and Sherlock Holmes.