The Information Revolution in Early Modern Europe

Abstract

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.

Literary information in China: A history. By Jack W.Chen, AnatolyDetwyler, XiaoLui, Christopher M. B.Nugent, BruceRusk (Eds.), New York: Columbia University Press. 2021. pp. 672. $90.00 (hbk). ISBN: 9780231195522

“…This book review is written from the perspective of information history. Recently, there has been a rise in books that address the history of information from various positions (Blair et al, 2021; Dover, 2021; Koopman, 2019; Nijenhuis et al, 2020). A common feature for these publications is their largely Western viewpoint, which is exactly what this present volume seeks to expand and challenge.…”