Elizabeth L. Eisenstein

In 1979 Elizabeth Eisenstein provided the first full-scale treatment of the fifteenth-century printing revolution in the West in her monumental two-volume work, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change. This abridged edition, after summarising the initial changes introduced by the establishment of printing shops, goes on to discuss how printing challenged traditional institutions and affected three major cultural movements: the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the rise of modern science. Also included is a later essay which aims to demonstrate that the cumulative processes created by printing are likely to persist despite the recent development of new communications technologies.

Originally published in two volumes in 1980, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change is now issued in a paperback edition containing both volumes. The work is a full-scale historical treatment of the advent of printing and its importance as an agent of change. Professor Eisenstein begins by examining the general implications of the shift from script to print, and goes on to examine its part in three of the major movements of early modern times - the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the rise of modern science.

There is a longstanding confusion of Johann Fust, Gutenberg's one-time business partner, with the notorious Doctor Faustus. The association is not surprising to Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, for from its very early days the printing press was viewed by some as black magic. For the most part, however, it was welcomed as a "divine art" by Western churchmen and statesmen. Sixteenth-century Lutherans hailed it for emancipating Germans from papal rule, and seventeenth-century English radicals viewed it as a weapon against bishops and kings. While an early colonial governor of Virginia thanked God for the absence of printing in his colony, a century later, revolutionaries on both sides of the Atlantic paid tribute to Gutenberg for setting in motion an irreversible movement that undermined the rule of priests and kings. Yet scholars continued to praise printing as a peaceful art. They celebrated the advancement of learning while expressing concern about information overload. In Divine Art, Infernal Machine , Eisenstein, author of the hugely influential The Printing Press as an Agent of Change , has written a magisterial and highly readable account of five centuries of ambivalent attitudes toward printing and printers. Once again, she makes a compelling case for the ways in which technological developments and cultural shifts are intimately related. Always keeping an eye on the present, she recalls how, in the nineteenth century, the steam press was seen both as a giant engine of progress and as signaling the end of a golden age. Predictions that the newspaper would supersede the book proved to be false, and Eisenstein is equally skeptical of pronouncements of the supersession of print by the digital. The use of print has always entailed ambivalence about serving the muses as opposed to profiting from the marketing of commodities. Somewhat newer is the tension between the perceived need to preserve an ever-increasing mass of texts against the very real space and resource constraints of bricks-and-mortar libraries. Whatever the multimedia future may hold, Eisenstein notes, our attitudes toward print will never be monolithic. For now, however, reports of its death are greatly exaggerated.

The first fully-documented historical analysis of the impact of the invention of printing upon European culture, and its importance as an agent of religious, political, social, scientific, and intellectual change.

The first fully-documented historical analysis of the impact of the invention of printing upon European culture, and its importance as an agent of religious, political, social, scientific, and intellectual change.

This is a relatively brief, interpretive treatment of the man whom Bakunin called "the greatest conspirator of the century" but whom most English-speaking scholars know, if at all, as an obscure, misspelled name. This is the only English biography of Buonarroti and the only book in any language to treat him as "the first professional revolutionist." It provides a detailed historiographical analysis of recent Italian Buonarrotian research, bearing on a wide variety of different special aspects of modern European history. It throws light on the conspiratorial underground of the early nineteenth century, on the relationship between the French Revolution and nineteenth century radical movements, on the historiography of the French Revolution, and on the development of the ideology of the totalitarian Left. Perhaps the main contribution made by this study is to provide precise factual data on aspects of pre-Marxian radicalism that have been heretofore treated in a vague, overgeneralized fashion.Buonarroti is regarded as the focal point for a preliminary investigation into the origins of an important but neglected profession which developed during the early nineteenth century. In the introduction, a distinction is drawn between the "amateur" revolutionist--the doctor, lawyer, or merchant who played a prominent role in various particular revolutions--and the frequently unemployed professional who attempted to create a situation that would make possible the practice of his craft and who had a vested interest in "revolution" in general but did not necessarily play a part in any particular revolution.In the following chapters, the entire course of Buonarroti's long career is surveyed chronologically, in an effort to account for the emergence of this new type of man. He is viewed as a youthful disciple of Rousseau, studying law at the University of Pisa; as a follower of Robespierre who served as a Jacobin agent in Corsica and Oneglia and was granted French citizenship by the National Convention; as a colleague of Babeuf and later author of the classic account of the Conspiracy of the Equals; as a political prisoner during the Empire who was involved in anti-Bonapartist plots; as the arch-conspirator whose agents infiltrated the revolutionary secret societies of Metternich's Europe; as Mazzini's rival in the Risorgimento; and finally, as the patriarch venerated by radical Frenchmen, who indoctrinated a new generation of young Parisians while directing political propaganda and agitation against the Orleanist Regime and reshaping the mythology of the French Revolution. At each of these stages of Buonarroti's career, his ideological orientation is analyzed, his present position in historiography examined, and his actual historical contribution suggested.The concluding chapter offers a reappraisal of the historical significance of Buonarroti's life and work. As a secular fundamentalist who took the words of the eighteenth-century philosophers literally and as a devout Jacobin who had seen in the First Republic his "heavenly city" materialize on earth, Buonarroti was incapable of coming to terms with the post-Thermidorian world. He achieved a new career by remaining frozen in the heroic pose of 1793 while outliving his times by over four decades. Although he dedicated his life to preparing for the great day that would restore the First Republic and thus shake the world, he failed to accomplish the mission he had set himself. However, he succeeded as a prototype. Others were eventually inspired by his example to adopt a similar vocation, with fateful consequence to all of Western civilization.The study concludes with a bibliographical essay containing a brief note on the probable role of the Italian Communist Party in stimulating Buonarrotian research in Italy and extensive critical discussion of selected scholarly literature on the various phases of Buonarroti's career.

Eighteenth-century French readers who wanted to keep up with political and literary trends, had to rely on books and journals imported from abroad. French writers, such as Voltaire and Rousseau, also depended on foreign firms to get their works in print. Grub Street Abroad demonstrates theimportance of extraterritorial publishing for the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. By placing the periphery at the center of the stage, it highlights neglected cosmopolitan aspects of an emergent "public sphere" and points to forces which undercut Bourbon claims of cultural hegemony. Firmsserving French markets from abroad are viewed as part of a far-flung communications network which, although sensitive to diplomatic pressures from diverse courts, still comprised a relatively autonomous, independent field of operations. Topics covered include the publishing and editing offrancophone journals and clandestine manuscripts; the emergence of the book review and the editorial board; the reliance of the philosophes upon foreign firms; and the cosmopolitan outlook of so-called "Grub Street hacks."

First edition. The sixth Hanes Lecture. iv , 35 pages. stiff paper wrappers.. 8vo..

An offprint by the Voltaire Foundation. The tribute of the a new species of demagogue