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The Invention of News: How the World Came to Know About Itself by [Andrew Pettegree]

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Andrew Pettegree

The Invention of News: How the World Came to Know About Itself Kindle Edition

by Andrew Pettegree (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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“A fascinating account of the gathering and dissemination of news from the end of the Middle Ages to the French Revolution” and the rise of the newspaper (Glenn Altschuler, The Huffington Post).

Long before the invention of printing, let alone the daily newspaper, people wanted to stay informed. In the pre-industrial era, news was mostly shared through gossip, sermons, and proclamations. The age of print brought pamphlets, ballads, and the first news-sheets. In this groundbreaking history, renowned historian Andrew Pettegree tracks the evolution of news in ten countries over the course of four centuries, examining the impact of news media on contemporary events and the lives of an ever-more-informed public.

The Invention of News sheds light on who controlled the news and who reported it; the use of news as a tool of political protest and religious reform; issues of privacy and titillation; the persistent need for news to be current and for journalists to be trustworthy; and people’s changing sense of themselves and their communities as they experienced newly opened windows on the world.

“This expansive view of news and how it reached people will be fascinating to readers interested in communication and cultural history.” —Library Journal (starred review)

Print length

453 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Yale University Press
Publication date

February 1, 2014
File size

6001 KB
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Andrew Pettegree is professor of modern history, University of St. Andrews, and founding director of the St. Andrews Reformation Studies Institute. He lives in Fife, Scotland. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Review

“A fascinating book—beautifully written, admirably organized, with a mass of information about even the most recondite means of collecting and transmitting news before 1800.”—Alastair Hamilton, TLS (Alastair Hamilton TLS 2014-06-20) --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00I50EXOG
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Yale University Press (February 1, 2014)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 1, 2014
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 6001 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 453 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #603,336 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #206 in History of Books
- #332 in Books & Reading Literary Criticism
- #387 in Journalism Writing Reference (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
46 ratings

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Craig Carlson

Brilliant book

Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2014

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Sometimes the best way to understand the meaning of something is not to go through a blow-by-blow of all its attributes, but rather to experience how it came to be. Pettegree's history of news is a breath of fresh air, especially in an age where social media has us scurrying around trying to re-invent the wheel.

The most profound idea in the book is that publishers have always had to come back to center, so to speak, and serve their readers. No readers, no publisher. But that's at the base. What happens if you start a car wash with a hose and a sponge? And a competitor across the street starts theirs with a hose, sponge and soap. An arms race of car wash gear ensues to attract the most customers. News publishing has been no different. I found Pettegree's recounting of news operations throughout history especially illuminating in this time in which online pubs believe that DIY, in which there are no editors looking over your shoulder, is superior to the old-fashioned collaborative process of having editors and a staff. Historically, we're in the same cycles.

24 people found this helpful

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TechJunkie

A fascinating and surprising examination of the birth of news

Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2015

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I found this book fascinating, but I've been a newspaper reporter in a major market for many years and of course it would be of interest to me. The insights are fascinating on the whys and wherefores of the spread of news. Of course the printing press was revolutionary, but this book examines the economics behind keeping those presses running. And who had the money? The merchant class which needed fast, reliable information in order to make business decisions. At the same time, the Roman empire had to move information almost as fast as it moved its troops and came up with a version of early snail mail to rule its subjects and allocate troop strength. The book, IMO, is four stars because the author is very good, but not a writer at the level of a William Manchester or a Laura Hillenbrand. This book contains great information that creates a baseline explaining so many other things about advancing civilization and the role that reliable information, spread to the masses, played.

12 people found this helpful

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Sam Lehman-Wilzig

Exhaustive, and occasionally exhausting

Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2020

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For a journalism or communication scholar, this book gets 5 stars (I am a media scholar); for the non-academic layperson 3.5 stars. Heavily laden with facts, this comprehensive study is laden with fascinating history and occasional trivia, that at times becomes a bit overwhelming. It helps to know some European (and American) early modern history, but even if one doesn't have that background, overall its a very worthwhile read.

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dion sorrell

History you need to know

Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2020

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Media awareness is the most important tool right now when we are drowned by information. This book is a good place to start understanding how we communicate information to each other on a mass scale.

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Nano Walls

Outstanding services by seller, and product 👍

Reviewed in the United States on February 29, 2020

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Excellent quality (like new) the book sent by the seller... 5 STARS!!! To the seller and the quality of the product 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟👍

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DCS

Top reviews from other countries

Charlie Beckett

A great book for anyone interested in the history or future of news and journalism

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 16, 2014

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I am a media prof at the LSE - I really liked this book and would recommend it for anyone interested in media history but also anyone thinking about media futures - this is the review I wrote for my blog:

If you've been on the planet recently and have access to electricity, you are probably familiar with the assertion that 'the Internet is the most important invention since Printing'. Indeed, for journalism scholars, looking back to Gutenberg can be a useful way to look forward beyond Berners-Lee, Zuckerberg and Jobs. But what about all the stuff in-between? How did we get from block printing presses to the modern idea of journalism and news? This fascinating book tells us.

The Invention of News is by a historian not a hack and so does not suffer from the media centric fallacy of assuming that journalism is the end-point of human development rather than a by-product. Andrew Pettegree writes with great clarity and an almost perfect balance between telling detail, engrossing anecdote or case study, and a broader, confident sense of what changes and why it matters. I think he secretly quite likes hacks but he does not over-estimate their idealism or importance.

There are already classic histories of the invention of printing and George Brock's recent book on newspapers has an excellent section on the history of the modern press. But this book fills in the gap between manuscripts and mass media. In fact it starts a lot earlier and takes us from the Romans and the wax tablets found near Hadrian's Wall right up to the revolutions in France and America. The best sections are from the 16th to 18th centuries when we move from pamphlets to papers.

This is a thorough narrative history but what makes it essential reading for anyone interested in the future of news are the lessons it teaches about the nature of journalism and media change:

"The arrival of print in the mid-fifteenth century offered many new opportunities; but it had to make its way in a world where networks for the distribution of news had already been developed: networks with standards, conventions and social freights with which those in circles of power were fully conversant. In the centuries that followed print disrupted and then reshaped this infrastructure, bringing new customers into the circle of news but without fully superseding the established norms, The news media of this era presented every bit as much a multi-media phenomenon as our own. It is that which gives this period its particular fascination."

[pp372]

There are many good things in this book that I could list. But sticking to the idea of media change alone it gives great insight and helps resist the myth that digital media is somehow uniquely transformative.

Pettegree shows very clearly how older forms of communication such as speech, letters and manuscript are often accentuated rather than diminshed by the new printed media. Even walking. Pettegree shows how the pilgrimage routes that ran across Europe were the continent's first information 'super highways' carrying data and news aided by the new printed maps.

Trade, religion and a prurient interest in gossip, sex and sensation fuel the pamphleteers as 16th century becomes a vital tool in the building of states. News also becomes a weapon in battles between them.

As the Armada head off from Spain to smite England propaganda hurtled around Europe spreading dis-information and seeking to boost allies and frighten Drake's sailors. News of the Spanish triumph was already winging it way to the courts across the continent spread by over-eager hacks going with the latest rumour of the expected victory for Philip II rather than reporting the reality of a massive military upset. Even back then verification was a problem when news was breaking especially in the confusion of conflict.

In the 18th century we get a more familiar story with the emergence of something called journalism from the coffee houses of London and Paris. Advertising starts to support newspapers, although a lot of money is also made from political subsidies (bribes). Very few people, however, seem to make much money, least of all the hacks.

It is at this point that power really seeks to prevent a free press. Even in post-revolutionary America the First Amendment is matched with local restrictions while in London the eventual concession of parliamentary reporting is balanced with tough libel laws. In revolutionary France things started with Enlightened openness but ended with 1/6 of journalists being killed as Robespierre urged punishment for 'treacherous journalists who are the most dangerous enemies of liberty'. Snowden and Assange have it easy.

But it is the variety of business model development that I found most intriguing in this book. News never really made much money despite the early emergence of some media moguls such as Charles-Joseph Panckoucke in France who manages to make money in Royal and Revolutionary times by clever political and business deals.

This was a period of start-up culture. Individual innovators tried new formats that often only lasted a few years. There were news sheets, pamphlets, subscriptions, data visualisations (wood-cuts), FAQs, classifieds, 'branded journalism', news aggregators, and even news agencies. And all this, remember, before the mass mechanisation of production and distribution made possible in the 19th century by steam, railways and telegraph.

They found new audiences such as women and the newly-educated bourgeoisie eager for information on stocks, shares, and warfare. Although it is clear that news was consumed as much because it was entertaining and fashionable as it was useful.

These early pioneers faced the same blogger v journalist debates about credibility, objectivity, bias and authority. But their main problem, like now, was survival.

You see the early stages of business journalism (generally very functional - they didn't foresee any crashes either) and campaigning journalism (generally not very effective). But there's also a lot of reporting rubbish such as miracles, freaks, apparitions and satire, although the market before the 19th century is quite elite.

The point is not that news has always been the same. Quite the opposite. Pettegree shows that it was constantly changing and always diverse according to national cultures and social conditions. So Germany with its many dukedoms and principalities has thousands of newspapers while the England has a much more concentrated press centred around central London.

This book shows that news has always been part of a wider network of communications. We seem to be heading back to something like that period when journalism was a minority within wider media. Instead of dominating the information landscape, journalism has to find new ways to connect to new sources, channels and platforms. That, if nothing else, has not changed.

Invention of News by Andrew Pettegree (Yale) 2014

This review by Charlie Beckett, @CharlieBeckett

My blog review is here:
[...]

5 people found this helpful

Dwight Hoyes

An Enlightening Read

Reviewed in Canada on June 13, 2014

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This book is a fascinating and enlightening read. A ton of very well written history that is hard to put down once you atart to read.
Highly recommended.

2 people found this helpful

happy

and from all reports I hear it is absolutely a great book. I recommend it

Reviewed in Canada on September 7, 2015

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This was a gift, and from all reports I hear it is absolutely a great book. I recommend it.

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