Review
‘Andrew Pettegree’s The Invention of News is 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)
“Newspaper themselves were once new media. Yet as Andrew Pettegree explains in an elegantly written and beautifully constructed account, it took several centuries before they became the dominant medium for news.”—Peter Wilby, New Statesman (Peter Wilby New Statesman 2014-02-07)
“From imperial messenger and town crier to Citizen Kane: a vigorous history of the rise of the news business.”—Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews)
“If you have ever wondered how this noisy, self-important carousel got going, Pettegree's book will tell you.”—Jeremy Paxman, The Guardian (Jeremy Paxman Guardian 2014-02-19)
“The Invention of News is. .a painstaking study of news networks before and during the early days of newspapers .[which] challenges our preconceptions about the news. . .[I]f you believe in the examined life, in reflecting on your own behaviour, [it is] hugely interesting."—Andrew Marr, Prospect (Andrew Marr Prospect 2014-03-01)
‘The Invention of News is a valuable addition to our knowledge of European cultural history. It is also an ambitious book [and] a good history. It illuminates and entertains. . .’—Adrian Tinniswood, Literary Review (Adrian Tinniswood Literary Review 2014-04-04)
“Pettegree gets through this vast, multidirectional mass of early modern material lucidly and expertly.”—Lawrence Klepp, The Weekly Standard (Lawrence Klepp The Weekly Standard)
“A fascinating account of the gathering and dissemination of news from the end of the Middle Ages to the French Revolution, when the newspaper came of age.”—Glenn Altschuler, The Huffington Post (Glenn Altschuler The Huffington Post)
Magisterial . . . The Invention of News is an outstanding introduction to the past that also helps us understand our future.”—Adam Kirsch, The Barnes and Noble Review (Adam Kirsch The Barnes and Noble Review)
“Pettegree relies on an impressive range of archival sources, including diaries, that illuminate how several individuals acquired and understood everyday events. 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 (Library Journal)
“Groundbreaking.”—Folger Magazine (Folger Magazine)
‘Andrew Pettegree’s capacious and compelling book traces the evolution of news, from the exchange of manuscripts in the late medieval period to the triumph of newspaper and journals as a medium for the expression of public opinion in the 18th-century Enlightenment. . .Pettegree’s book is judicious and well written, with illustrations that give an immediate sense of how ‘news’ evolved from being the concern of the political elite to the privilege of entire nations.’—Justin Champion, BBC History Magazine (Justin Champion BBC History Magazine 2014-07-01)
“Though Pettegree’s impeccably researched history ranges over four centuries and half a dozen countries, he manages to cover countless details without losing sight of broader themes.”—Nick Romeo, The Daily Beast (Nick Romeo The Daily Beast)
“Revelatory.”—The New Yorker (The New Yorker)
“The Invention of News delivers a rich and compelling narrative, which picks away at several common presumptions about the history of news.”—Books and Culture (Books and Culture)
“This is a wide-ranging and readable study—and a very good one—that makes clear the rise of journalism as we have long known it was anything but predictable centuries ago.”?Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly (Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly)
“Howe’s is a voice that ought still to be heard – and in this collection we may bear privileged witness to the gathering power of that voice over the course of its long development.”?Open Letters Monthly (Open Letters Monthly)
Winner of the 2015 Goldsmith Book Prize given by the Harvard Kennedy School, Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. (The Goldsmith Award Harvard Kennedy School 2015-01-23)
“This is a wide-ranging study, but a good one, and one that makes clear the rise of journalism was anything but predictable.”—Chris Sterling, CBQ (Chris Sterling)
“This book covers the transmission of information to 1800; it contains a great mass of information about Renaissance communications and the expansion of understanding in the age of political and mercantile expansion.”—Leonard R. N. Ashley, Chronique (Leonard R. N. Ashley CHRONIQUE)
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.
