A History of Reading in the West

by Cavallo, Guglielmo; Chartier, Roger; Cochrane, Lydia G.

• ISBN13: 9781558494114
• ISBN10: 1558494111
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-10-01
• Publisher: Univ of Massachusetts Pr

Summary

This path-breaking study will become the standard work on the history of reading in the West. It will be indispensable to students of cultural history, and to all those who want a fresh perspective on the history of books and their uses. Wide-ranging and authoritative account of the changing practices of reading from the ancient world to the present day. An international team of leading historians examine the technical innovations which change physical aspects of books and other texts, as well as the changing forms of reading and the growth and transformation of the reading public. Contributors include: Robert Bonfil, Guglielmo Cavallo, Roger Chartier, Jean-Francois Gilmont, Anthony Grafton, Jacqueline Hamesse, Dominique Julia, Martyn Lyons, M.B. Parkes, Armando Petrucci, Paul Saenger, Jesper Svenbro and Reinhard Wittmann. This path-breaking study has been highly successful in hardback and is now available in paperback for the first time.

Table of Contents

Publisher's Note

Introduction

Archaic and Classical Greece

The Invention of Silent Reading

Between Volumen and Codex

Reading in the Roman World

Reading, Copying and Interpreting a Text in the Early Middle Ages

The Scholastic Model of Reading

Reading in the Later Middle Ages

Reading in the Jewish Communities of Western Europe In the Middle Ages

The Humanist as Reader

Protestant Reformations and Reading

Reading and the Counter-Reformation

Reading Matter and 'Popular' Reading

From the Renaissance to the Seventeenth Century

Was there a Reading Revolution at the End of the Eighteenth Century?

New Readers in the Nineteenth Century

Women, Children, Workers

Reading to Read

A Future for Reading

Notes

Select Bibliography

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.