Compares the archives of European states after 1500 to reveal changes in how records supported memory, authority and power.

Includes revised version of papers from a conference entitled "Transforming Information: Record Keeping in the Early Modern World" held at the British Academy in April 2014, together with three additional essays.

The dynamic but little-known story of how archives came to shape and be shaped by European culture and society

Archival Afterlives explores the posthumous fortunes of scientific and medical archives in early modern Britain. If early modern natural philosophers claimed all knowledge as their province, theirs was a paper empire. But how and why did naturalists engage with archives, and in particular, with the papers of their dead predecessors? This volume makes a firm case for expanding what counts as scientific labour, integrating scribes, archivist, library keepers, editors, and friends and family of deceased naturalists into the history of science. It shows how early modern natural philosophers pursued new natural knowledge in dialogue with their recent material past. Finally, it demonstrates the sustaining importance of archival institutions in the growth and development of the “New Sciences.” Contributors are: Arnold Hunt, Michael Hunter, Vera Keller, Carol Pal, Anna Marie Roos, Richard Serjeantson, Victoria Sloyan, Alison Walker, and Elizabeth Yale.

What is the history of knowledge? This engaging and accessible introduction explains what is distinctive about the new field of the history of knowledge (or, as some scholars say, ‘knowledges in the plural’) and how it differs from the history of science, intellectual history, the sociology of knowledge or from cultural history. Leading cultural historian, Peter Burke, draws upon examples of this new kind of history from different periods and from the history of India, East Asia and the Islamic world as well as from Europe and the Americas. He discusses some of the main concepts used by scholars working in the field, among them ‘order of knowledge’, ‘situated knowledge’ and ‘knowledge society’. This book tells the story of the transformation of relatively raw ‘information’ into knowledge via processes of classification, verification and so on, the dissemination of this knowledge and finally its employment for different purposes, by governments, corporations or private individuals. A concluding chapter identifies central problems in the history of knowledge, from triumphalism to relativism, together with attempts to solve them. The only book of its kind yet to be published, What is the History of Knowledge? will be essential reading for all students of history and the humanities in general, as well as the interested general reader.

The availability of digital editions of early modern works brings a wealth of exciting archival and primary source materials into the classroom. But electronic archives can be overwhelming and hard to use, for teachers and students alike, and digitization can distort or omit information about texts. Teaching Early Modern English Literature from the Archives places traditional and electronic archives in conversation, outlines practical methods for incorporating them into the undergraduate and graduate curriculum, and addresses the theoretical issues involved in studying them. The volume discusses a range of physical and virtual archives from 1473 to 1700 that are useful in the teaching of early modern literature--both major sources and rich collections that are less known (including affordable or free options for those with limited institutional resources). Although the volume focuses on English literature and culture, essays discuss a wide range of comparative approaches involving Latin, French, Spanish, German, and early American texts and explain how to incorporate visual materials, ballads, domestic treatises, atlases, music, and historical documents into the teaching of literature.

"This Supplement builds on a burgeoning body of research that approaches the archive not merely as the object, but also as the subject of enquiry. It explores the phenomenon of record keeping in the early modern period in the context of signifi cant ecclesiastical, political, intellectual and cultural developments that served as a stimulus to it: state formation, religious reformation, and economic transformation; the advent of the mechanical press, the spread of educational opportunity, and the expansion of literacy; changing epistemological conventions, shifting attitudes towards history and memory, and new modes of self-representation. Focusing attention on the impulses behind the surge in public and private documentation in Europe between 1500 and 1800, the contributors to this volume place the processes by which individual, collective and institutional records were created, compiled, authorised, and used under the microscope. They examine the activities of curators and scribes, analyse the issues of credibility and authenticity to which their endeavours gave rise, and evaluate the role of textual, pictorial, material and fi nancial records in managing knowledge and giving expression to senses of identity. Stretching traditional, technical defi nitions of the record and archive, they investigate how writing and document-making of various kinds was shaped by dynamic interactions between ordinary people and by the politics of everyday life. They also illuminate the multiple ways in which archives mediate and construct the past, preserving some traces of it for posterity while consigning others to oblivion."--

This revised translation of the classic 1998 Une histoire de l’archivistique provides a wide-ranging international survey of developments in archival practices and management, from the ancient world to the present day. The volume has been substantially updated to incorporate recent scholarship and provide additional examples from the English-speaking world. These new additions complement the original text and offer a broad and up-to-date survey, with examples spanning Europe, Africa, Asia and North and South America. The bibliography has also been updated with new material and supplementary English language sources, making it an accessible and up-to-date resource for those working and researching in the field of archives and archival history. This book is an essential reference volume for both archivists and historians, as well as anyone interested in the history of archives.

Collecting has a long tradition in the Middle East but the museum as a public institution is relatively new. Today there are national museums for antiquities in most Arab countries. While in some cases the political and social climate has hindered the foundation of museums, with existing collections even destroyed at times, the recent museum boom in the Gulf States is again changing the outlook. This unique book is the first to explore collecting practices in archives and museums in the modern Arab world, featuring case studies of collecting practices in countries ranging from Egypt and Lebanon to Palestine, Jordan, Iraq and the Gulf, and providing a theoretical and methodological basis for future research. The authors are also concerned with investigating the relationship between past and present, since collecting practices tell us a great deal not only about the past but also about the ways we approach the past and present conceptions of our identities. Collections can be textual as well, as in the stories, memories or events selected, recalled, and retold in the pages of a text. As interest in memory studies as well as popular and visual culture grows in the Arab World, so collecting practices are at the heart of any critical approach to the past and the present in that region. The book will be of great interest not only to scholars and students of the modern Arab world but also to professionals in museums and collections in the region, as well as around the world.

This volume sets out to explore the world of domestic devotions and is premised on the assumption that the home was a central space of religious practice and experience throughout the early modern world. The contributions to this book, which deal with themes dating from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, tell of the intimate relationship between humans and the sacred within the walls of the home. The volume demonstrates that the home cannot be studied in isolation: the sixteen essays, that encompass religious history, the histories of art and architecture, material culture, literary history, and social and cultural history, instead point individually and collectively to the porosity of the home and its connectedness with other institutions and broader communities. Contributors: Dotan Arad, Kathleen Ashley, Martin Christ, Hildegard Diemberger, Marco Faini, Suzanna Ivanič, Debra Kaplan, Marion H. Katz, Soyeon Kim, Hester Lees-Jeffries, Borja Franco Llopis, Alessia Meneghin, Francisco J. Moreno Díaz del Campo, Cristina Osswald, Kathleen M. Ryor, Igor Sosa Mayor, Hanneke van Asperen, Torsten Wollina, and Jungyoon Yang.