This history of early modern news focuses on news itself rather than specific material forms. Centering on movement through different media, time, and place, it makes the case for a truly comparative, pan-European history of news. After the Introduction, the second section, News Moves, explores how we think about and research news culture and news communication, demonstrating movement is more important than static forms. The third, News Sings, focuses on news ballads, comparing actors, publics, music, and soundscapes of ballad singing in several European cities, highlighting the central role of immaterial elements, such as sound, music and voice. The fourth, News Counts, argues that seeing news the way a machine might read it-through its metadata-is one way of moving beyond form, allowing us to find surprising commonalities in news cultures which differ greatly in both time and place.

In News Networks 35 scholars from 10 countries give a new account of the history of European news, emphasising its transnational character and the international transmission of forms and modes of news as well as information.

News Networks in Early Modern Europe attempts to redraw the history of European news communication in the 16th and 17th centuries. News is defined partly by movement and circulation, yet histories of news have been written overwhelmingly within national contexts. This volume of essays explores the notion that early modern European news, in all its manifestations – manuscript, print, and oral – is fundamentally transnational. These 37 essays investigate the language, infrastructure, and circulation of news across Europe. They range from the 15th to the 18th centuries, and from the Ottoman Empire to the Americas, focussing on the mechanisms of transmission, the organisation of networks, the spread of forms and modes of news communication, and the effects of their translation into new locales and languages.

Communication in the government -- Communication in the political arena -- Communication in the city -- Communicative transactions -- The system challenged : the interdict of 1606-7 -- Propaganda? : print in context

This provocative new history of early modern Europe argues that changes in the generation, preservation and circulation of information, chiefly on newly available and affordable paper, constituted an 'information revolution'. In commerce, finance, statecraft, scholarly life, science, and communication, early modern Europeans were compelled to place a new premium on information management. These developments had a profound and transformative impact on European life. The huge expansion in paper records and the accompanying efforts to store, share, organize and taxonomize them are intertwined with many of the essential developments in the early modern period, including the rise of the state, the Print Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, and the Republic of Letters. Engaging with historical questions across many fields of human activity, Paul M. Dover interprets the historical significance of this 'information revolution' for the present day, and suggests thought-provoking parallels with the informational challenges of the digital age.

This history of early modern news focuses on news itself rather than specific material forms. Centering on movement through different media, time, and place, it makes the case for a truly comparative, pan-European history of news. After the Introduction, the second section, News Moves, explores how we think about and research news culture and news communication, demonstrating movement is more important than static forms. The third, News Sings, focuses on news ballads, comparing actors, publics, music, and soundscapes of ballad singing in several European cities, highlighting the central role of immaterial elements, such as sound, music and voice. The fourth, News Counts, argues that seeing news the way a machine might read it-through its metadata-is one way of moving beyond form, allowing us to find surprising commonalities in news cultures which differ greatly in both time and place.

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.