The Oxford History of the Book
James Raven is a Fellow of Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, a Fellow of the British Academy, and Professor Emeritus of Modern History at the University of Essex. Formerly he was Reader in Social and Cultural History, University of Oxford, and Professorial Fellow of Mansfield College. He is the author, editor, and co-editor of numerous books in early modern and modern British, European, and colonial history, including Judging New Wealth (1992); The Practice and Representation of Reading (1996); The English Novel 17701829 (2000); Free Print and Non-Commercial Publishing (2000); London Booksellers and American Customers (2002); Lost Libraries (2004); The Business of Books: Booksellers and the English Book Trade (2007); Books between Europe and the Americas (2011); Publishing Business (2014); Bookscape: Geographies of Printing and Publishing in London before 1800 (2014); and What is the History of the Book? (2018).
The historians who contributed to The Oxford History of the Book are all distinguished authorities in their field. They are:
ANN BLAIR , Harvard University
SHEILA S. BLAIR , Boston College and Virginia Commonwealth University
JONATHAN M. BLOOM , Boston College and Virginia Commonwealth University
CYNTHIA BROKAW , Brown University
MARIE-FRANOISE CACHIN , Universit Paris Diderot Paris VII
BARBARA CROSTINI , Uppsala University
JEFFREY FREEDMAN , Yeshiva University
JORAN PROOT , University of Milan
JAMES RAVEN , University of Cambridge
CHRISTOPHER A. REED , The Ohio State University
ELEANOR ROBSON , University College London
DAVID RUNDLE , University of Kent
JEFFREY T. SCHNAPP , Harvard University
GRAHAM SHAW , University of London
M. WILLIAM STEELE , International Christian University, Tokyo
EVA HEMMUNGS WIRTN , Linkping University
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The text of this edition was published in The Oxford Illustrated History of the Book in 2020 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First published 2020 First published in paperback 2022
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2022946819
ISBN 9780192886897
ebook ISBN 9780192886910
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192886897.001.0001
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Praise for The Oxford History of the Book
This book will become an invaluable point of departure for students new to the field, for scholars who need to venture outside their normal chronological and geographical comfort zones, andas it should beto that elusive general reader.
John Feather, Library & Information History
Together, these fourteen essays form a thorough picture of how and why books progressed along the lines that they did. In an age when books are once again experiencing momentous changes, this well-researched reminder of their durability and timelessness is very welcome.
Eileen Gonzalez, Foreword Reviews
This volume is a cultural biography of the book, taking a global view of its underlying function as a portable, durable conveyor of reproducible informationOther works trace the history of the book, but Oxfords treatment is a deeper, more multicultural, and more visually appealing approach.
Lesley Farmer, Booklist
This is an excellent compilation on the world-wide history of the bookPut it on your Christmas present list.
Prof. T.D. Wilson, Information Research
The Oxford History of the Book is a seminal and original work of meticulous scholarship
Midwest Book Review
A sumptuous production.
Liz Dexter, Shiny New Books
Contents
Introduction
James Raven
The Ancient World
Eleanor Robson
Byzantium
Barbara Crostini
Medieval and Early Modern East Asia
Cynthia Brokaw
Medieval Western Europe
David Rundle
Renaissance and Reformation
James Raven and Joran Proot
Managing Information
Ann Blair
The Islamic World
Sheila S. Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom
Enlightenment and Revolution
Jeffrey Freedman
South Asia
Graham Shaw
Industrialization
Marie-Franoise Cachin
Modern China, Japan, and Korea
Christopher A. Reed and M. William Steele
Globalization
Eva Hemmungs Wirtn
Books Transformed
Jeffrey T. Schnapp
Ann Blair is Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor at Harvard University where she teaches early modern European cultural and intellectual history and book history. She is especially interested in the history of intellectual practices. Her publications include The Theater of Nature: Jean Bodin and Renaissance Science (Princeton, 1997) and Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age (New Haven, 2010).
Sheila S. Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom shared the Norma Jean Calderwood University Professorship of Islamic and Asian Art at Boston College and the Hamad bin Khalifa Endowed Chair of Islamic Art at Virginia Commonwealth University. Jointly and individually they are the authors, co-authors, or editors of many books and articles on various aspects of Islamic art and architecture. Sheila Blair is particularly interested in calligraphy in the Islamic lands and the arts of the book in the Mongol period, and is the author of the prize-winning book Islamic Calligraphy (Edinburgh, 2008). Jonathan Bloom is particularly interested in the history of paper in the Islamic lands and Europe, and is the author of the prize-winning book Paper before Print (New Haven, 2001).
Cynthia Brokaw is Professor of History at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. A scholar of late imperial Chinese history, she specializes in the history of the pre-modern Chinese book. Her