*Starred Review* Looking back on her early adulthood, St. Teresa of Avila remarked, “If I did not have a new book, I did not feel that I could be happy.” In this history of the pioneering publishers who transformed Gutenberg's new technology into an epoch-making force, Pettegree recounts the fascinating story of how new books found their way into the hands of Renaissance readers such as St. Teresa. That force, as readers soon realize, reshaped the world of learning, as affordable books swelled enrollment in universities and multiplied municipal schools. But the force of the printed word emerged far from the classroom, as printing presses become potent weapons in political and ecclesiastical conflicts. Pettegree details in particular the ubiquity of polemical pamphlets and broadsheets that stirred popular passions, only to disappear, except as fugitive entries in publishers' catalogs. Though readers gain considerable understanding of technical processes of publishing—such as the making of paper and cutting of type—what they come to see most clearly is the tense political and economic circumstances in which Renaissance publishers operated. Assailed by censors on the one hand and by pirate presses on the other, publishers effected a cultural revolution only through remarkable resourcefulness. A probing chronicle of crisis and change. --Bryce Christensen
Review
“[Pettegree] offers a radically new understanding of printing in the years of its birth and youth.”—Robert Pinsky, New York Times Book Review
(Robert Pinsky
The New York Times Book Review)
“An authoritative, innovative and succinct account of one of the most fundamental issues in Renaissance history, the role of the printed book.”—Henry Kamen
(Henry Kamen)
“Pettegree…examines an earlier rocky transition in the history of the written word: not the transition from print to digital, but the transition from manuscript books to print.”—Heather Horn, TheAtlantic.com
(
Atlantic.com)
". . . a highly readable volume, . . . the text carefully navigates a balance between popular history and scholarly monograph."—Timothy J. Dickey,
College & Research Libraries (Timothy J. Dickey
College & Research Libraries 2011-05-01)
"By far the most significant publication yet on the social history of the book. . . . It is, by far, one of the most significant library-related books I have ever read in many a year; I cannot recommend it highly enough."—Norman D. Stevens, RBM
(Norman D. Stevens
RBM)
“Well written and…a useful introduction to readers unfamiliar with the subject.”—Renaissance Quarterly
(
Renaissance Quarterly)
“Thorough and engaging.”—Library Journal
(
Library Journal)
“[A] fine new study.”—Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker
(Adam Gopnik
The New Yorker)
“[A] masterpiece...Pettegree is a splendid storyteller.”—RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage
(
RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage)
"[H]istorians in many fields and of many regions will find [Pettegree's] suggestions valuable and well-founded. Like all great historical surveys, The Book in the Renaissance will provoke new rounds of questioning."—Adrian Johns, Journal of Modern History
(Adrian Johns
Journal of Modern History)
Selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2011 in the General category.
(Choice Outstanding Academic Title
Choice 2012-03-12)
