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Awards
OverviewFull Product DetailsAuthor: Adrian Johns (Norton)Publisher: The University of Chicago Press Imprint: University of Chicago Press Dimensions: Width: 1.70cm , Height: 0.50cm , Length: 2.40cm Weight: 1.474kg ISBN: 9780226401218ISBN 10: 0226401219 Pages: 776 Publication Date: 15 October 1998 Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate , Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Manufactured on demand  We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier. Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments A Note on Conventions 1: Introduction: The Book of Nature and the Nature of the Book 2: Literatory Life: The Culture and Credibility of the Printed Book in Early Modern London 3: The Advancement of Wholesome Knowledge : The Politics of Print and the Practices of Propriety 4: John Streater and the Knights of the Galaxy: Republicanism, Natural Knowledge, and the Politics of Printing 5: Faust and the Pirates: The Cultural Construction of the Printing Revolution 6: The Physiology of Reading: Print and the Passions 7: Piracy and Usurpation: Natural Philosophy in the Restoration 8: Histories of the Heavens: John Flamsteed, Isaac Newton, and the Historia Coelestis Britannica 9: Conclusion Bibliography IndexReviewsA compelling exposition of how authors, printers, booksellers, and readers competed for power over the printed page. . . . The richness of Johns's book lies in the splendid detail he has collected to describe the world of books in the first two centuries after the printing press arrived in England. --Alberto Manguel Washington Times A detailed, engrossing, and genuinely eye-opening account of the formative stages of the print culture. . . . This is scholarship at its best. --Merle Rubin Christian Science Monitor A mammoth and stimulating account of the place of print in the history of knowledge. . . . Johns has written a tremendously learned primer. --D. Graham Burnett New Republic Entertainingly written. . . . The most comprehensive account available . . . well documented and engaging. --Ian Maclean Times Literary Supplement The most lucid and persuasive account of the new kind of knowledge produced by print. . . . A work to rank alongside McLuhan. --John Sutherland The Independent A scholarly investigation of printing's early cultural history in England. In 1979 Elizabeth Eisenstein published a massively influential book entitled The Printing Press as an Agent of Change. Books, she said, enabled a stable and fixed culture of learning that uniquely facilitated the rise of scientific knowledge-making. Now Johns (Sociology/Univ. of Calif., San Diego) aims to revise her findings in his own learned (if exaggeratedly contentious) study of books and publishing in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. In contrast to Eisenstein, he argues that a multiplicity of competing and idiosyncratic cultures of print emerged during that era and that the conditions of knowledge were far from uniform. While he concedes it to be true that printed books stabilized texts and led to a degree of fixity in available knowledge, Johns proposes that a variety of cultural contingencies undermined what in retrospect has seemed to be the objectivity of early modern scientific thought. Not least among these contingencies were the rampant and labyrinthine practices of book piracy, a circumstance that undermined the authority and authenticity of print. Johns also suggests that different printers and booksellers developed different models of accrediting and appraising the trustworthiness of books. Much is made of the lively rivalries among the various factions, and the fates of various scientific books and writers are explored in copious detail, including those of Sir Isaac Newton, Tycho Brahe, and others. It is Johns's overall strategy to emphasize the cultural and social factors that shaped the realm of the printed word, and in particular to underline the role that the mobile concept of trust (as opposed to verifiable fact) played in defining the culture of print that has come down to us. Relying on detailed knowledge of original texts and a magisterial view of the enormous secondary literature, Johns has written a fine-grained study with considerable force of argument. (Kirkus Reviews) In this original study Johns examines the way in which books came into being in 17th-century England. He explores the relationship between authors, printers and stationers in a world which was still coming to terms with concepts such as copyright, intellectual property and the single version of a text. Focusing particularly on books about science, he sheds valuable light on the 'scientific revolution' made by Newton, Boyle and other members of the new Royal Society in showing how their ideas reached the marketplace. This is a highly learned work which makes a significant contribution to our understanding of early modern culture, written in a lively and accessible style which is sure to have wide appeal. (Kirkus UK) Author InformationAdrian Johns is the Allan Grant Maclear Professor of History at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Death of a Pirate: British Radio and the Making of the Information Age. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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