What Is the History of the History of Books?

Abstract

Perhaps an emergent subdiscipline attains maturity at the moment when its adherents assume—usually erroneously—that their colleagues outside the new field understand what it is all about. By that measure, the history of the book has arrived. Early efforts to explain the enterprise, such as Robert Darnton's classic 1982 article, “What Is the History of Books?,” or to set agendas for research, such as the 1984 American Antiquarian Society (aas) conference, “Needs and Opportunities in the History of the Book,” have evolved into flourishing institutions. The Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (sharp), for example, attracts members both in the United States and abroad, holds well-attended yearly meetings, runs an active online discussion group, issues a newsletter, and publishes an annual journal, Book History. Yet if students of print can now take pleasure in recognizing each other by their name badges rather than by what Darnton called “the glint in their eyes,” it may be time to move beyond insiders' exhilaration so that other Americanists can gain a sense of the field's usefulness for their own work. The history of the history of books presents an opportunity for those dealing with all sorts of texts—not just literary or journalistic expression but also laws, sermons, scientific papers, business manuals, or political tracts—to think anew about how such artifacts acquired their particular shape and significance. It also invites historians to stand back from familiar distinctions on which they have come to rely, adopting a greater appreciation for ambiguity and flux as historical forces.1

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