Eyeless reading - tracing

Here's a book: A Natural History of Shells, by Gary Vermeij. Vermeij has given unparalleled attention to seashells. In them he finds traces that he interprets as hints to the nature and resistence to vulnerability of large-scale human organizations -- nations and multinational corporations. Also by the same author, who has been blind since the age of 3: Nature: An Economic History. Featured on NPR.

For some reason, the idea of a blind man discovering, in the touch of molluscs, that humans do not understand the massive human constructs they make seems about right.