Gutenberg's Europe : the book and the invention of Western modernity
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Gutenberg's Europe : the book and the invention of Western modernity
Polity, 2017
- : pb
- : hardback
- Other Title
-
L'Europe de Gutenberg : le livre et l'invention de la modernité occidentale (XIIIe-XVIe siècle)
Available at 7 libraries
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  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
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  Tokushima
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  Saga
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  Kumamoto
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  Okinawa
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [275]-301) and index
Description and Table of Contents
- Volume
-
: hardback ISBN 9780745672571
Description
Major transformations in society are always accompanied by parallel transformations in systems of social communication what we call the media. In this book, historian Frederic Barbier provides an important new economic, political and social analysis of the first great 'media revolution' in the West: Gutenberg s invention of the printing press in the mid fifteenth century. In great detail and with a wealth of historical evidence, Barbier charts the developments in manuscript culture in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and shows how the steadily increasing need for written documents initiated the processes of change which culminated with Gutenberg. The fifteenth century is presented as the 'age of start-ups' when investment and research into technologies that were new at the time, including the printing press, flourished.
Tracing the developments through the sixteenth century, Barbier analyses the principal features of this first media revolution: the growth of technology, the organization of the modern literary sector, the development of surveillance and censorship and the invention of the process of 'mediatization'. He offers a rich variety of examples from cities all over Europe, as well as looking at the evolution of print media in China and Korea.
This insightful re-interpretation of the Gutenberg revolution also looks beyond the specific historical context to draw connections between the advent of print in the Rhine Valley ( paper valley ) and our own modern digital revolution. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of early modern history, of literature and the media, and will appeal to anyone interested in what remains one of the greatest cultural revolutions of all time.
Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword
Introduction
Part one Gutenberg before Gutenberg
Chapter 1 The preconditions for a new economy of the media
The key space of modernity: the town
The market in education
The emergence of the political
Chapter 2 The economy of the book
Manuscript production
Change: the objects and practices
Chapter 3 The birth of the market
The market and its regulation
The religious paradigm, or the emergence of the masses
Writing: work and the professions
Part 2 The age of start-ups
Chapter 4 The development and logics of innovation
Paper and papermaking
Xylography
Punches, forms and moulds
Chapter 5 Gutenberg and the invention of printing
Historical portrait of a city
Strasbourg
The return to Mainz
Chapter 6 Innovation
Techniques: innovation in processes
Practices
The society of the workshops
The invention of the graphosphere
Part three The first media revolution
Chapter 7 Printing conquers the world
The spread of the innovation
Ranking the cities
Conjunctures and specializations: the market and innovation
Chapter 8 The nature of text
The book system
The meaning of the text
The 'book-machine'
Chapter 9 The media explosion
A new paradigm: production and reproduction
The Reformation and printing
Regulation: imposing order on books
Printing and governments
Conclusion
Chronologies
Semiology and virtuality
Gutenberg's Europe
Notes
Abbreviations
Index
- Volume
-
: pb ISBN 9780745672588
Description
Major transformations in society are always accompanied by parallel transformations in systems of social communication what we call the media. In this book, historian Frederic Barbier provides an important new economic, political and social analysis of the first great 'media revolution' in the West: Gutenberg s invention of the printing press in the mid fifteenth century. In great detail and with a wealth of historical evidence, Barbier charts the developments in manuscript culture in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and shows how the steadily increasing need for written documents initiated the processes of change which culminated with Gutenberg. The fifteenth century is presented as the 'age of start-ups' when investment and research into technologies that were new at the time, including the printing press, flourished.
Tracing the developments through the sixteenth century, Barbier analyses the principal features of this first media revolution: the growth of technology, the organization of the modern literary sector, the development of surveillance and censorship and the invention of the process of 'mediatization'. He offers a rich variety of examples from cities all over Europe, as well as looking at the evolution of print media in China and Korea.
This insightful re-interpretation of the Gutenberg revolution also looks beyond the specific historical context to draw connections between the advent of print in the Rhine Valley ( paper valley ) and our own modern digital revolution. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of early modern history, of literature and the media, and will appeal to anyone interested in what remains one of the greatest cultural revolutions of all time.
Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword
Introduction
Part one Gutenberg before Gutenberg
Chapter 1 The preconditions for a new economy of the media
The key space of modernity: the town
The market in education
The emergence of the political
Chapter 2 The economy of the book
Manuscript production
Change: the objects and practices
Chapter 3 The birth of the market
The market and its regulation
The religious paradigm, or the emergence of the masses
Writing: work and the professions
Part 2 The age of start-ups
Chapter 4 The development and logics of innovation
Paper and papermaking
Xylography
Punches, forms and moulds
Chapter 5 Gutenberg and the invention of printing
Historical portrait of a city
Strasbourg
The return to Mainz
Chapter 6 Innovation
Techniques: innovation in processes
Practices
The society of the workshops
The invention of the graphosphere
Part three The first media revolution
Chapter 7 Printing conquers the world
The spread of the innovation
Ranking the cities
Conjunctures and specializations: the market and innovation
Chapter 8 The nature of text
The book system
The meaning of the text
The 'book-machine'
Chapter 9 The media explosion
A new paradigm: production and reproduction
The Reformation and printing
Regulation: imposing order on books
Printing and governments
Conclusion
Chronologies
Semiology and virtuality
Gutenberg s Europe
Notes
Abbreviations
Index
by "Nielsen BookData"