History of the book

Coolidge A Brief History of the Book The study of the book is not a simple one. It encompasses politics, economics, technological advances, social relationships, and innumerable other factors. However, when the study is broken down, one can analyze the different facets of the evolution of the book to understand it on a grander scale. Robert Darnton and Thomas R. Adams and Nicolas Barker offer different methods for studying the book, which lay the groundwork for further exploration and can help us understand later developments. Another moment in the history of the book crucial to understanding its modern form is print culture, which Elizabeth Eisenstein explores and deconstructs. Benedict Anderson's essay on national consciousness is key to understanding the history of the book because of the rise of capitalism and transition to printing in the vernacular, making books a common commodity. Finally, Michel Foucault discusses the development of the author function and how it was developed through discourse, which also arose from expanding print culture. This paper will touch on each of these brief historical points and discuss their relation to the relevance of the study of the book and why the printing and the book are the most revolutionary inventions in human history.

There are various methods to studying the history of the book, two of which are outlined

by Robert Darnton and Thomas R. Adams and Nicolas Barker. While Darnton emphasizes the communications circuit and the social relationships that contributed to book culture, Adams and Barker, on the other hand, focus on the study of the book's physical development and the evolution of it's production, distribution, and consumption. While these two accounts differ, neither can be left out in a complete study of the history of the book. Darnton's communications circuit "runs from the author to the publisher (if the bookseller does not assume that role), the printer, the shipper, the bookseller, and the reader...Book history concerns each phase of this

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process and the process as a whole, in all its variations over space and time and in all its relations with other systems, economic, social, political, and cultural, in the surrounding environment" (Darnton 11). In this model, people are the driving force in the creation and distribution of the book and there is not a great emphasis on the technology being used and developed. Adams and Barker, though, take a closer look at how technology propelled the evolution of the book. In this model, books are far more generalized and recognized for their use across disciplines. This shifts emphasis from people to the physical books, regardless of content, which factors into Darnton’s model. To focus on the book itself, one must look at the process defining books and consider the publishing, manufacturing, distribution, reception, and survival. This largely takes the human element out of the study of the book and allows us to look at its development without personal and social influences. The most notable change we can see with the rise in this process is the greater number of books produced and circulated, which in turn emphasized the content of the text, rather than the physical copy, which was a pillar of manuscript culture. Central to this argument is the fact that "the physical form of the book was equally important [to the text]. A book can exercise its power by its outward or inward appearance, by its impressive strength and durability, by its size, large or small" (Adams and Barker 49). And yet, this did not result in a vacuum but through the efforts and innovations from the innumerable people contributing to the writing, publishing, distribution, and selling of books.

The transition from manuscript to print culture changed the course of human development for a long list of reasons, which would be too unwieldy to be enumerate in this paper; but central to this discussion is the rise of the “Commonwealth of Learning,” as described

by Elisabeth Eisenstein. The models of studying the book put forth by Darnton and Adams and Barker both note the importance of the bookseller, often also the printer in early print culture.

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Eisenstein notes how the rise in print culture correlates with the rise in shop culture. In these shops, academics from various disciplines were interacting and sharing ideas with one another more than any other period in history. Some booksellers/ printers became well known and in those places where [the] enterprise prospered and achieved a position of influence with fellow townsmen, [the] workshop became a veritable cultural center attracting local literati and celebrated foreigners; providing both a meeting place and message center for an expanding cosmopolitan Commonwealth of Learning. (Eisenstein 238) Academics were no longer sequestered to their respective fields and universities. Instead, they were sharing ideas and expanding upon each other’s work. This lead to a rise in writing, which in turn led to more books being printed, and more ideas were being spread. Academic exploration was able to transcend class and social boundaries, becoming its own ever-growing niche in society. In addition, the growth of print culture propelled its own growth because a rise in the volume of available texts lowered their costs, increasing money spent on books, and in turn resulting in a greater number of works available. Crucial to both the “Commonwealth of Learning” and the rise in available books at an (relatively) affordable cost was the growth in literacy, also propelled by print culture. As printing became more prevalent, people needed to be able to read. Increased literacy meant not only learning how to read, but learning from reading.

Eisenstein gives the example of how the master-apprentice relationship that was used to teach skills, crafts, and trades prior to the advent of print culture rapidly declined because “the transmission of written information became much more efficient,” and furthermore, “was the chance extended to bright undergraduates to reach beyond their teachers’ grasp. Gifted students no longer needed to sit at the feet of a given master in order to learn a language or academic skill. Instead they could swiftly achieve mastery on their own” (Eisenstein 242). Books were

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now uniting academics and scholars while also becoming a popular commodity among nonacademics.

Closely related to the theories of Eisenstein are those put forth by Benedict Anderson in his chapter “Origins of National Consciousness” from Imagined Communities. The rise in print culture correlates, also, with the growth of the nation-state. Capitalism propelled both of these evolutions. As literacy rates were growing, the number of Latin readers was stagnating and beginning to decline. The market for Latin texts was completely saturated and there was a demand for texts not written in Latin. Vernaculars quickly began to replace Latin in print. People were largely isolated from other communities, but texts in languages that were familiar to them linked these groups of similar language speakers. And while the vernaculars varied widely, print began to standardize them, resulting in modern languages we know today such as English, German, French, Spanish, and Italian. Furthermore, the revolutionary vernacularizing thrust of capitalism was given further impetus by three extraneous factors… The first, and ultimately the least important, was a change in the character of Latin itself… Second was the impact of the Reformation, which, at the same time, owed much of its success to print-capitalism…Third was the slow, geographically uneven, spread of particular vernaculars as instruments of administrative centralization by certain would-be absolutist monarchs. (Anderson 39-40) Not only did these three factors help create the nation-state, but further propelled the book. With communities now separated by language, editions of the same work had to be printed to accommodate multiple languages. Different languages were an early defining factor between communities, but this division created closer relationships between people within their respective communities, and different national interests, tastes, and ideologies were developed, warranting even more printing to further the internal discourse as well as one between nations. Anderson succinctly identifies the relationship between capitalism, printing, and national consciousness, but the history of the book can also be reduced to the individual level.

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The rise of print culture and the nation-state, as well as the development of the ability to carry out discourses not restricted to the universities, gave rise to the author. According to Michel Foucault in “What is an Author?” the author figure arose out of discourse. A discourse can be found in any subject, language, and time period. Foucault states that the author is a function and a result of discourse. The author is not his or her writing, but in fact dies once word is put to paper. While we may attribute ideas and concepts to a particular person, it would be a mistake to grant that person the ultimate authority over the text or to rely on them for the sole meaning of the work. The author, in Foucault’s terms, are central to the history of the book because the author, being a projection of the reader and critic, allows us to categorize books, appropriate ideas, and classify work. For the author, this resulted in the development of property rights over his or her work and to have the work be identified with an individual. The author function is quite fluid; it changes over time and by context because “the author’s name manifests the appearance of a certain discursive set and indicates the status of this discourse within a society and a culture” (Foucault 284) and these societies and cultures would not have been defined in the first place without printing being the impetus for the creation of the nation state, as evidenced by Anderson.

The history of the book is a long and complex one. A study of the book must be a cross disciplinary one, as the book is a universal commodity utilized in every field. Studying the early foundations of printing and the systems it constructed can help us understand the modern book.

In particular, the interaction between social relationships and the rapid advancement of printing technology were pivotal. The models for the study of the book by Darnton and Adams and Barker describe these early pillars of the history of the book. The evolution of print culture also explains how exactly the book and literacy proliferated in Europe. These in turn gave rise to the

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Commonwealth of Learning, one of the most important elements of the book’s history because it advanced fields of study well beyond what may have occurred under manuscript culture. And finally, growing literacy, national consciousness, and the author figure resulted from print culture and in turn propelled the evolution of the book.

The study of the history of the book is a broad and weighty topic, but is essential to understanding various elements central to society’s development over history. In areas such as political science, English, and economics, one can clearly identify the influence of printing and the book and the stark shift this revolution had on humanity. While it is important to remember that we can study the history of the book in numerous historical and modern contexts, we must not forget that books themselves are pieces history. Print encapsulates our human experience in one form or another and its invention was the turning point in history when the world was connected, ideas were proliferated, and the world became modern.

© Alison Coolidge 2015

Coolidge Works Cited Adams, Thomas R. and Nicolas Barker. “A New Model for the Study of the Book.” The Book History Reader. Ed. David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery. New York: Routledge, 2006. 47-65. Print.

Anderson, Benedict. “The Origins of National Consciousness.” The Origins of National Consciousness. 37-46. Blackboard download. Web. Darnton, Robert. “What is the History of the Book?” The Book History Reader. Ed. David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery. New York: Routledge, 2006. 9-26. Print.

Eisenstein, Elizabeth. “Defining the Initial Shift: Some Features of Print Culture.” The Book History Reader. Ed. David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery. New York: Routledge, 2006. 232-254. Print.

Foucault, Michel. “What is an Author?” The Book History Reader. Ed. David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery. New York: Routledge, 2006. 281-291. Print.

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