This little book began as an even littler essay. It appeared on Cognoscenti, the online ideas and opinions page of WBUR, an affiliate of National Public Radio. I am grateful to the staff who supported it there: Iris Adler, program manager; Robin Lubbock, director of social media; and especially Frannie Carr Toth, editor and producer, without whose gentle, expert badgering over the course of several months I never would have written the piece. My stumbling block was the name: cognoscenti is Italian for “those in the know,” and when first invited to contribute, all I could think was, “But I’m not.” Of course, this reaction eventually yielded my subject.
I am equally grateful to my editor, Sarah McGrath, and my agent, Barney Karpfinger, for suggesting, once the essay went live, that there might be a book in it. I privately thought they were nuts. But as I began reporting, I found myself captivated by what seemed to be the swiftly multiplying facets of the topic. What a pleasure this has been. I am grateful, too, to everyone at the Karpfinger Agency and Riverhead who spotted long before I did that this could work, and who lent their expertise to making it work better: Cathy Jaque, Marc Jaffee, Kate Hurley, Sarah Stein, and Geoff Kloske.
Above all, thanks very much to everyone who granted me an interview. I ran out of space in which to include all the excellent stories you generously shared, but every single conversation informed the book in some valuable way, whether by providing leads, suggesting new lines of inquiry, interestingly reframing some aspect of the theme, or otherwise contributing to my understanding of what it means to say “I don’t know.”