The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (Volumes 1 and 2 in One) [Paperback]

Elizabeth L. Eisenstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 1980 | ISBN-10: 0521299551 | ISBN-13: 978-0521299558

Originally published in two volumes in 1980, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change is now issued in a paperback edition containing both volumes. The work is a full-scale historical treatment of the advent of printing and its importance as an agent of change. Professor Eisenstein begins by examining the general implications of the shift from script to print, and goes on to examine its part in three of the major movements of early modern times - the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the rise of modern science.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'For fifteen years we have been waiting for a deep level-headed examination of the ways in which print transformed Europe. Elizabeth Eisenstein has written that book ... Eisenstein has an intimate familiarity with the great narrative of modern history since the 15th century. She boasts an unsurpassed feeling for the strengths and weaknesses of the ways in which historians have explained great changes. No mania to find laws or principles of universal validity drives her. She is not afraid of detail. Her eye for the telling oddity, the crucial contradiction, in enviable.' Commonweal

'This is a good and important book ... the author's clear and forceful style makes it a pleasure to read ... Eisenstein is particularly illuminating and discriminating on the part played by the great sixteenth-century scholar-printers, such as the Estiennes, Oporinus, Plantin, in the emergence of ideals of religious tolerance and intellectual brotherhood ... She does give us a remarkably complete and highly critical survey of modern historical writing on humanism, the Reformation and science up to the eighteenth century.' The New York Review of Books

'Her two volumes represent an extensive survey of the recent literature on the three intellectual and social movements of the period 1400-1700: the Italian Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation and the Scientific Revolution. Ms. Eisenstein examines the major hypotheses as to their causes and progress, and reassesses them in terms of the impact of printing and its products.' The New Republic

Book Description

The first fully-documented historical analysis of the impact of the invention of printing upon European culture, and its importance as an agent of religious, political, social, scientific, and intellectual change.

Product Details

• Paperback: 820 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (September 30, 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521299551
• ISBN-13: 978-0521299558
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.6 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #420,265 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A superb introduction to the effect the printing press has h March 7, 1998

By Ari Davidow

We have come to forget that the introduction of the printing press by Gutenberg mattered, or we have come to assume that it directly led to the Protestant Reformation. Eisenstein wondered how true that was, and what other changes the press wrought in European society in the couple of hundred years after the press was introduced. Start with the concept of authorship--once books could be reproduced in quantity, authorship mattered. Then consider the question of alphabetization and indexing. Then think of what happens when travel writers describe native dress--people start believing the books and variations become more extreme to meet the printed word. That's just the beginning. Eisenstein's book is not just an incredible work, well written, about the effect on our culture of the printing press. It is also the sort of book that makes one realize how unimaginable and vast the influence of any invention can have on a society. This book is critical for media studies, history, printing, typography, just to better understand our own society, or for the pleasure of a good, thorough, read.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Mind-blowing, but a tough slog for lay readers August 22, 2001

By Kaitin D. Sherwood

This was a great book! It gave me a real appreciation for how foreign the medieval way of thought is from current -- because of the printing press. If you've read Walter Ong's _Orality and Literacy_, this is similarly mind-blowing.

I will caution, however, that this is a very academic book. She spends a fair amount of time refuting people who disagreed with her. It is also designed for historians. I'm no dummy, but some stuff went over my head. (If you know the following phrases and people, you'll be fine: Plutarch, incunabula, Tridentine, Rabelais, Marlowe, the _Digest_, Cujas.)

I gave it five stars because it was definitely worth slogging through, but I wish I had gotten the abridged version instead.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent parallels with the Internet February 22, 2005

By Nemesis

No, Dr. E did not write in this book about the Internet at all but at least in pages 65-110, you can see the parallels. There is plenty here to chew on and yes, having both volumes together is a whopper but this is at the bare minimum a TOP 10 book for everyone in the Western world because it gets right to the heart of this reality we call "economics".

Excellent history and philosophy reading when you look at it from the right angle. It ranks up there with Drahos - Philosophy of IP, Kuhn's, Sorensen's thought experiments, Thoreau's selected journals, Dewey's how we think and Einstein's ideas and opinions.