The Politics of Information in Early Modern Europe

The invention and spread of newspapers in the seventeenth century had a profound effect on early modern European culture and politics. The European pattern for the delivery and consumption of political information provided the model for the rest of the world. However, the transition to printed news was neither rapid nor easy and a greater circulation of news had widely varying effects. Recent research has revealed much about the origins and development of news publishing in each of its European settings. This book is the first to bring this research together in comprehensive survey. The international contributors to this volume study all of the most important information markets in Europe. Topics covered include: the relation between printed and manuscript news role of censorship mechanisms effects of politics on reading and publishing effects of reading on contemporary politics What emerges from this research is a new view of political information as an enterprise, and of the products of information as commodities circulating far and wide.