The Information Revolution in Early Modern Europe

Erscheinungsjahr 2021
ISBN: 978-1-107-14753-9
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, Band 62, 270 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 666 g

Reihe: New Approaches to European History

This provocative new history of early modern Europe argues that changes in the generation, preservation and circulation of information, chiefly on newly available and affordable paper, constituted an 'information revolution'. In commerce, finance, statecraft, scholarly life, science, and communication, early modern Europeans were compelled to place a new premium on information management. These developments had a profound and transformative impact on European life. The huge expansion in paper records and the accompanying efforts to store, share, organize and taxonomize them are intertwined with many of the essential developments in the early modern period, including the rise of the state, the Print Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, and the Republic of Letters. Engaging with historical questions across many fields of human activity, Paul M. Dover interprets the historical significance of this 'information revolution' for the present day, and suggests thought-provoking parallels with the informational challenges of the digital age.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Dover, Paul M.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftssektoren & Branchen Medien-, Informations und Kommunikationswirtschaft Verlagswesen
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction: worlds of paper; 2. European paper; 3. 'Ink-Stained fingers': the information of commerce and finance; 4. The paper of politics and the politics of paper; 5. Revolutionary print; 6. The book of nature and the books of man; 7. Writing others and the self; 8. Conclusion: information revolutions, past and present.

Über Autor(innen)

Dover, Paul M.
Paul M. Dover is Professor of History at Kennesaw State University. He has published widely in the political, diplomatic and cultural history of late medieval and early modern Europe, and in the history of information. He is the author of the Changing Face of the Past (2013) and the editor of Secretaries and Statecraft in the Early Modern World (2016).