Franco Moretti's latest book collects the author's work from the last 20 years (1994-2011). Combining studies of different texts under one cover (Shakespeare's plays, a European novel of the 18th-19th centuries, a Victorian detective novel and Hollywood films), the book is essentially a consolidated manifesto of the scientist. Moretti proposes a new principle for the study of literature - "long-range reading," contrasted with the usual "close reading," and uses it to work with large bodies of texts, usually remaining beyond the attention (and possibilities) of studies applying more traditional optics. Moretti suggests "reading" large arrays of texts, combining several approaches to cultural production: quantitative methods, an evolutionary approach to literary forms, and world-system analysis, which allows you to trace the export of cultural discoveries in the world space.