Specialist Markets in the Early Modern Book World, edited by Richard Kirwan and Sophie Mullins, investigates an underexplored yet important facet of early modern book production. Bringing together 19 detailed case studies, this volume considers and reconstructs the characteristics of specialist book production in the early modern period. In particular it explores the motives that led to specialisation ranging from the desire for profit on the part of risk-taking, entrepreneurial individuals or family firms to the more propagandist or missionising aims of corporate groups who subsidised production, often without regard for profit. The book also explores the economic and personal pressures and perils that accompanied specialist production, which was often a risk-laden enterprise that could end in financial and social ruin.

Specialist Markets in the Early Modern Book World, edited by Richard Kirwan and Sophie Mullins, investigates an underexplored yet important facet of early modern book production. Bringing together 19 detailed case studies, this volume considers and reconstructs the characteristics of specialist book production in the early modern period. In particular it explores the motives that led to specialisation ranging from the desire for profit on the part of risk-taking, entrepreneurial individuals or family firms to the more propagandist or missionising aims of corporate groups who subsidised production, often without regard for profit. The book also explores the economic and personal pressures and perils that accompanied specialist production, which was often a risk-laden enterprise that could end in financial and social ruin.

International Exchange in the Early Modern Book World presents new research on several aspects of the movement and exchange of books between countries, languages and confessions. It considers elements of the international book trade, the circulation and collection of texts, the practice of translation and the diffusion and exchange of technical and cultural knowledge. Commercial and logistical aspects of the early modern book trade are considered, as are the relationships between local markets and the internationally-minded firms which sought to meet their expectations. The barriers to the movement of books across borders – political, linguistic, confessional, cultural – are explored, as are the means by which these barriers were surmounted.

This collection of essays, commissioned in honour of Andrew Pettegree, presents original contributions on the Reformation, communication and the book in early modern Europe. Together, the essays reflect on Pettegree’s ground-breaking influence on these fields, and offer a comprehensive survey of the state of current scholarship.

The early modern European book world was confronted with many crises and controversies. Some conflicts were of such monumental scale that they wrought significant reconfigurations of the trade. Others were more quotidian in nature – evidence of the intensely competitive and at times predatory nature of the industry. How publishing negotiated and responded to the various crises, conflicts and disputes of the age is explored by the rich and varied interdisciplinary contributions in this volume. To succeed in the business of books, printers and publishers needed to seize the advantage in the often complex environments in which they operated. What was required was determination, resilience, and inventiveness, even in the most challenging of times.

In Episodes in the Life of the Early Modern Learned Book, Ian Maclean investigates intellectual life through the prism of the history of publishing, academic institutions, journals, and the German book fairs whose evolution is mapped over the long seventeenth century. After a study of the activities of Italian book merchants up to 1621, the passage into print, both locally and internationally, of English and Italian medicine and ‘new’ science comes under scrutiny. The fate of humanist publishing is next illustrated in the figure of the Dutch merchant Andreas Frisius (1630–1675). The work ends with an analysis of the two monuments of the last phase of legal humanism: the Thesauruses of Otto (1725–44) and Gerard Meerman (1751–80).

Interpreting Early Modern Europe is a comprehensive collection of essays on the historiography of the early modern period (circa 1450-1800). Concerned with the principles, priorities, theories, and narratives behind the writing of early modern history, the book places particular emphasis on developments in recent scholarship. Each chapter, written by a prominent historian caught up in the debates, is devoted to the varieties of interpretation relating to a specific theme or field considered integral to understanding the age, providing readers with a ‘behind-the-scenes’ look at how historians have worked, and still work, within these fields. At one level the emphasis is historiographical, with the essays engaged in a direct dialogue with the influential theories, methods, assumptions, and conclusions in each of the fields. At another level the contributions emphasise the historical dimensions of interpretation, providing readers with surveys of the component parts that make up the modern narratives. Supported by extensive bibliographies, primary materials, and appendices with extracts from key secondary debates, Interpreting Early Modern Europe provides a systematic exploration of how historians have shaped the study of the early modern past. It is essential reading for students of early modern history. For a comprehensive overview of the history of early modern Europe see the partnering volume The European World 3ed Edited by Beat Kumin - https://www.routledge.com/The-European-World-15001800-An-Introduction-to-Early-Modern-History/Kuminah2/p/book/9781138119154.

This book presents and explores a challenging new approach in book history. It offers a coherent volume of thirteen chapters in the field of early modern book history covering a wide range of topics and it is written by renowned scholars in the field. The rationale and content of this volume will revitalize the theoretical and methodological debate in book history. The book will be of interest to scholars and students in the field of early modern book history as well as in a range of other disciplines. It offers book historians an innovative methodological approach on the life cycle of books in and outside Europe. It is also highly relevant for social-economic and cultural historians because of the focus on the commercial, legal, spatial, material and social aspects of book culture. Scholars that are interested in the history of science, ideas and news will find several chapters dedicated to the production, circulation and consumption of knowledge and news media.

Early Modern Universities: Networks of Higher Education publishes twenty essays on early modern institutional academic networks and the history of the book. The case studies examine universities, schools, and academies across a wide geographical range throughout Europe, and in Central America. The volume suggests pathways for future research into institutional hierarchies, cultural ties, and how networks of policy makers were embedded in complex scholarly and scientific developments. Topics include institutions and political entanglements; locality and mobility, especially the movement of scholars and scholarship between institutions; communication, collaboration, and the circulation of academic knowledge. The essays use studies of print and book cultures to provide insights into cooperative interregional markets, travel and trade. Contributors: Laurence Brockliss, Liam Chambers, Liam Chambers, Peter Davidson, Mordechai Feingold, Alette Fleischer, Willem Frijhoff, Anja- Silvia Goeing, Martina Hacke, Michael Hunter, Urs B. Leu, David A. Lines, Ian Maclean, Thomas O’Connor, Glyn Parry, Yarí Pérez Marín, Elizabeth Sandis, Andreas Sohn, Jane Stevenson, Iolanda Ventura, and Benjamin Wardhaugh.

This peer-reviewed conference volume examines paper and material aspects of the written word in early modern Europe. The collection is designed around three thematic strands, based on the lifecycle of handwritten documents and manuscripts and printed books: first, production of paper, second production of books and manuscripts and third, trade and exchange, and ownership of manuscripts and books. By tracing the history of paper, books and collections through case studies of historically important objects, the authors identify agents and hotspots of production, trade and ownership from both centres and peripheries of Europe from the late Middle Ages until the beginning of industrialisation. They thereby address material aspects of documents, manuscripts and books, as well as object biography, from an interdisciplinary viewpoint. By doing so this volume provides insight into actual practices of the past and the material history of written texts.