I started academic life as a historian of the Protestant Reformation, and gradually shifted to the history of communication, in the process creating a major online resource documenting publications from all over the world in the first two centuries of printing, the Universal Short Title Catalogue. After several works on books, news, and information culture I teamed up with another St Andrews colleague, Arthur der Weduwen, to enjoy the pleasures of co-authorship: this book, a history of libraries and book collecting, is our fourth collaboration.
What do you do if your father has just discovered whole new continents? In the case of Hernando, son of Christopher Columbus, the answer was to conquer a new world of his own: the new universe of printed books. In this beautifully written and accessible study, Edward Wilson-Lee explores Hernando’s quixotic yet determined attempt to emulate the library of ancient Alexandria by creating a universal library of print. It does not end well.
This impeccably researched and “adventure-packed” (The Washington Post) account of the obsessive quest by Christopher Columbus’s son to create the greatest library in the world is “the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters” (NPR) and offers a vivid picture of Europe on the verge of becoming modern.
At the peak of the Age of Exploration, Hernando Colón sailed with his father Christopher Columbus on his final voyage to the New World, a journey that ended in disaster, bloody mutiny, and shipwreck. After Columbus’s death in 1506, eighteen-year-old Hernando sought to continue—and surpass—his father’s campaign to explore the boundaries of the known world…
The key obstacle to communication in the pre-modern age was distance: this was particularly the case in the transported communities of European settlers in distant continents, often sparsely settled and without the familiar settled infrastructure of roads and trade. In this landmark study, Richard Brown considers the case of colonial America and the early Republic through a series of well-chosen case studies. These reveals that Americans relied on a multi-media experience of newsgathering, where conversation, gossip, and neighbour networks competed with new media innovations. An instant classic full of insight.
One of the leading scholars dealing with early communication history in America, Richard Brown discusses how information moved through eighteenth and nineteenth-century American society, principally through the expansion of the printed word and its change from the property of the learned and wealthy into a mass-audience market.
It is striking that the multitude of studies of propaganda in the Second World War deal with newspapers, cinema, radio, and poster campaigns and largely ignore books. The Nazi regime certainly did not, as this fascinating and authoritative book makes clear. From the first months after their takeover of power, Nazi authorities moved swiftly to establish control over libraries and the publishing industry, as well as authors and booksellers. This is the definitive study of how the German book world was reordered to serve the totalitarian state.
This is the most comprehensive account to date of literary politics in Nazi Germany and of the institutions, organizations and people who controlled German literature during the Third Reich. Barbian details a media dictatorship-involving the persecution and control of writers, publishers and libraries, but also voluntary assimilation and pre-emptive self-censorship-that began almost immediately under the National Socialists, leading to authors' forced declarations of loyalty, literary propaganda, censorship, and book burnings. Special attention is given to Nazi regulation of the publishing industry and command over all forms of publication and dissemination, from the most presitigious publishing houses to the smallest municipal…
Interweaving the author’s own life and a historical event is a tricky business, but Susan Orlean pulls it off in the masterpiece of sympathetic and suspenseful writing. Having moved to Los Angeles, Orlean becomes fascinated by a local disaster, the destruction by fire of 400,000 books from the collection of the local public library. At the time this event went largely unreported, overshadowed by the far larger catastrophe at the Chernobyl nuclear power station that occurred almost simultaneously. Along the way, as Orlean introduces us to the leading characters in this still largely unresolved mystery, we learn a great deal about the pre-digital world of the public library, and the colourful cast of readers for whom it was an essential part of their lives.
Susan Orlean’s bestseller and New York Times Notable Book is “a sheer delight…as rich in insight and as varied as the treasures contained on the shelves in any local library” (USA TODAY)—a dazzling love letter to a beloved institution and an investigation into one of its greatest mysteries. “Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book” (The Washington Post).
On the morning of April 28, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. The fire was disastrous: it reached two thousand degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished,…
This is the one that got away. There was no communications revolution in the sixteenth century as important as the establishment of a transcontinental European postal network. It was made possible by the fact that the Habsburg Empire under Charles V now united most of its major postal hubs, and they found in the family Thurn and Taxis contractors with the influence and administrative brilliance to set up the necessary postal relays. This crucial innovation found its historian in Wolfgang Behringer, in a magisterial study published in the year 2003. Remarkably, it has never been published in English. There are a couple of nice articles in English, but this is like railway sandwiches compared to the feast available for those who can read the original in German.
The Library charts the rich and varied history of the library, from the famous collections of the ancient world to the embattled public resources we cherish today. This is not a story of easy progress through the centuries, nor a lament for libraries lost. Instead, we show that a repeating cycle of creation and dispersal, decay and reconstruction, turns out to be the historical norm as collections that represented the values and interests of one generation fail to speak to the one that follows. We trace the rise and fall of fashions and tastes that dictated the fate of libraries, and reveal the high crimes and misdemeanors committed in pursuit of rare and valuable manuscripts: the private collector, who offered a sanctuary for books throughout history, is at the heart of the story.
I’ve always been fascinated by group dynamics, large and small. Why things functioned well, why they didn’t. It’s possible my ability to empathize and use humor as a consensus-builder is the reason I was elected president of a homeowners association, a music production association, and even an agricultural group. Books were not particularly involved in this fascination! But in recent years, experiencing the breakdown of civility and trust in our political and cultural discourse, I’ve taken a more analytical view of the dynamics. These books, in their very different ways, have taught me lessons about life, understanding those with different beliefs, and finding ways to connect and move forward.
We’ve all experienced the overwhelming level of political and social divisiveness in our country. This invisible “virus” of negativity is, in part, the result of the name-calling and heated rhetoric that has become commonplace among commentators and elected leaders alike.
My book provides a clear perspective on the historical and modern-day causes of our nation's divisive state. It then proposes easy-to-understand solutions—an action plan for our elected leaders and citizens as well. Rather than a scholarly treatment of a complex topic, the book challenges us to take the obvious steps required of those living in a free democracy. And it…
Uniting the States of America: A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation
Lyle Greenfield's "Uniting the States of America―A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation" is a work of nonfiction and opinion. Incorporating the lessons of history and the ideas and wisdom of many, it is intended as both an educational resource and a call-to-action for citizens concerned about the politically and culturally divided state of our Union. A situation that has raised alarm for the very future of our democracy.
First, the book clearly identifies the causes of what has become a national crisis of belief in and love for our country. How the divisiveness and hostility rampant in our political…
