The Book: The Life Story of a Technology

By Nicole Howard

Book Overview

The printed book is one of life's most frequently encountered technologies. Historian Nicole Howard provides a comprehensive survey of the evolution of this technology, tracing its development across many centuries and cultures. No other technology in human history, declares Howard, has had the impact of this invention. By examining the book as a technology, Howard reveals how profoundly information and media have shaped history and how vital the technology of the book has been to cultural and intellectual change. This engaging study extends from clay tablets and rolls of papyrus to bound folio sheets, from inks and scripts to lead type and printing presses, from the Linotype machine to the laptop. Cross-cultural in scope, it examines innovations in the production and manufacture of books from the Middle and Far East, Europe, and the Americas. Howard recounts printing techniques from Gutenberg's first press to 21st-century electronic publishing. Howard's broad overview and accessible writing style make this book ideal for students and bibliophiles alike. The volume includes a glossary of terms, a timeline of important events, and a selected bibliography of useful resources for further information.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801893119
• ISBN13: 9780801893117
• Release Date: November 2009
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.9" x 9.1"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary

Customer Reviews

Good, serviceable history

This is a useful book if you are looking for a standard and readable history of the book. It seemed to me authoritative, but its citations are a bit skimpy. Sometimes the author tells us where she's getting her information, and at other times she doesn't. The bibliography is OK. Howard doesn't advance an argument or any new thesis about the history of the book. Rather, this is a convention history of a technology, based on progress and development. I wish she had had more to say about what newer technological changes actually pose to the relevance of the book itself. She just assumes that the book will always be important, but I think this is a presumption that one can't so easily sustain.