Cultural history on a grand scale, this immensely readable book—the summation of decades of study by one of the world's great scholars of the book—is the story of writing from its very beginnings to its recent transformations through technology. Traversing four millennia, Martin offers a chronicle of writing as a cultural system, a means of communication, and a history of technologies. He shows how the written word originated, how it spread, and how it figured in the evolution of civilization. Using as his center the role of printing in making the written way of thinking dominant, Martin examines the interactions of individuals and cultures to produce new forms of "writing" in the many senses of authorship, language rendition, and script. Martin looks at how much the development of writing owed to practical necessity, and how much to religious and social systems of symbols. He describes the precursors to writing and reveals their place in early civilization as mnemonic devices in service of the spoken word. The tenacity of the oral tradition plays a surprisingly important part in this story, Martin notes, and even as late as the eighteenth century educated individuals were trained in classical rhetoric and preferred to rely on the arts of memory. Finally, Martin discusses the changes to writing wrought by the electronic revolution, offering invaluable insights into the influence these new technologies have had on children born into the computer age.

The History and Power of Writing

Literature & Fiction

Martin, Henri-Jean

History & Criticism

University of Chicago Press

Cultural history on a grand scale, this immensely readable book—the summation of decades of study by one of the world's great scholars of the book—is the story of writing from its very beginnings to its recent transformations through technology. Traversing four millennia, Martin offers a chronicle of writing as a cultural system, a means of communication, and a history of technologies. He shows how the written word originated, how it spread, and how it figured in the evolution of civilization. Using as his center the role of printing in making the written way of thinking dominant, Martin examines the interactions of individuals and cultures to produce new forms of "writing" in the many senses of authorship, language rendition, and script. Martin looks at how much the development of writing owed to practical necessity, and how much to religious and social systems of symbols. He describes the precursors to writing and reveals their place in early civilization as mnemonic devices in service of the spoken word. The tenacity of the oral tradition plays a surprisingly important part in this story, Martin notes, and even as late as the eighteenth century educated individuals were trained in classical rhetoric and preferred to rely on the arts of memory. Finally, Martin discusses the changes to writing wrought by the electronic revolution, offering invaluable insights into the influence these new technologies have had on children born into the computer age.

The book as the subject of a distinct historical discipline dates from the landmark publication of L'Apparition du livre by Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin in 1958. In this further contribution to his pathbreaking work with Febvre, eminent French historian Henri-Jean Martin explores the role of the book and book industry in early modern France. Martin begins with a sweeping look at the revolutionary role played by the new technology of printing in Europe of the Renaissance and Reformation. Shifting the focus to France, he then examines the political implications of publishing in the reign of Francis I, including such topics as the founding of royal and university libraries, the role of church-state relations, Richelieu's cultural program, and censorship. In revealing case studies of Rouen and Grenoble, Martin pinpoints precisely which books were sold and to which social groups, and explains why the initially successful printers of Rouen were eventually forced out of business by the Parisian courts. Martin also casts a discerning eye on early graphic design―from the first illustrated "coffee table" books purchased by the newly rich to the invention of the paragraph to facilitate reading. And he shows how attempts by the French government to suppress and control publication were eventually thwarted by free market forces from Amsterdam and Neufchatel. This is a book that will be of interest to those who study the history of the book, intellectual history of early modern Europe, and the relation between politics and ideas.

The French Book: Religion, Absolutism and Readership, 1585-1715 (The Johns Hopkins Symposia in Comparative History, 22)

Business & Money

Economics

Johns Hopkins University Press

Available for the first time in English, this is a major work of scholarship, originally published in Geneva in 1969 by a distinguished French historian of the famous Annales school and President of the Institut du Livre. By placing the publishing trade at the center of the study of the intellectual, political, and economic evolution of Europe through examination of the physical evidence, Martin has revolutionized historical narrative. He shows the printed book to be the focus of society's cultural well-being.  This is an exhaustive look at the most highly developed book trade of the period, the century from 1598 to 1701 in France. The inquiry is consistently set against the background of international and internal political and religious conflict.

Print, Power and People in 17th-Century France

GERARD, DAVID

Scarecrow Press

The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing, 1450-1800 (Verso World History Series)

The emergence of the book was not merely an event of world historical importance, but the dawn of modernity. In this much praised work, Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin mesh together economic and technological history, sociology and anthropology, with the study of consciousness itself to root the development of printing in the changing social relations and ideological struggles of Western Europe. Now that the printed page may become a thing of the past, The Coming of the Book is more pertinent than ever.

FEBVRE, Lucien

Verso Books

The emergence of the book was not merely an event of world historical importance, but the dawn of modernity. In this much praised work, Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin mesh together economic and technological history, sociology and anthropology, with the study of consciousness itself to root the development of printing in the changing social relations and ideological struggles of Western Europe. Now that the printed page may become a thing of the past, The Coming of the Book is more pertinent than ever. The Verso World History Series: This series provides attractive new editions of classic works of history, making landmark texts available to a new generation of readers. Covering a time-span stretching from Ancient Greece and Rome to the twentieth century, and with a global geographical range, the series will also include thematic volumes providing insights into such topics as the spread of print cultures and the history of money.

History

World

Verso

Books, and the printed word more generally, are aspects of modern life that are all too often taken for granted. Yet the emergence of the book was a process of immense historical importance and heralded the dawning of the epoch of modernity. In this much praised history of that process, Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin mesh together economic and technological history, sociology and anthropology, as well as the study of modes of consciousness, to root the development of the printed word in the changing social relations and ideological struggles of Western Europe.

The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing 1450-1800 (Verso Classics, 10)

Histoire et pouvoirs de l'écrit (Histoire et décadence) (French Edition)

Historical Study & Educational Resources

Libr. académique Perrin

Le livre français sous l'Ancien Régime (Histoire du livre) (French Edition)

Promodis/Editions du Cercle de la librairie

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Martin, Henri-Jean. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Martin, Henri-Jean

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Martin, Henri-Jean. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The History and Power of Writing

The History and Power of Writing

The French Book: Religion, Absolutism and Readership, 1585-1715 (The Johns Hopkins Symposia in Comparative History, 22)

Print, Power and People in 17th-Century France

The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing, 1450-1800 (Verso World History Series)

The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing, 1450-1800 (Verso World History Series)

The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing 1450-1800 (Verso Classics, 10)

Histoire et pouvoirs de l'écrit (Histoire et décadence) (French Edition)

Le livre français sous l'Ancien Régime (Histoire du livre) (French Edition)