A great book about an even greater book is a rare event in publishing. Darnton's history of the "Encyclopedie" is such an occasion. The author explores some fascinating territory in the French genre of "histoire du livre," and at the same time he tracks the diffusion of Enlightenment ideas. He is concerned with the form of the thought of the great philosophes as it materialized into books and with the way books were made and distributed in the business of publishing. This is cultural history on a broad scale, a history of ...
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A great book about an even greater book is a rare event in publishing. Darnton's history of the "Encyclopedie" is such an occasion. The author explores some fascinating territory in the French genre of "histoire du livre," and at the same time he tracks the diffusion of Enlightenment ideas. He is concerned with the form of the thought of the great philosophes as it materialized into books and with the way books were made and distributed in the business of publishing. This is cultural history on a broad scale, a history of the process of civilization. In tracing the publishing story of Diderot's "Encyclopedie," Darnton uses new sources--the papers of eighteenth-century publishers--that allow him to respond firmly to a set of problems long vexing historians. He shows how the material basis of literature and the technology of its production affected the substance and diffusion of ideas. He fully explores the workings of the literary market place, including the roles of publishers, book dealers, traveling salesmen, and other intermediaries in cultural communication. How publishing functioned as a business, and how it fit into the political as well as the economic systems of prerevolutionary Europe are set forth. The making of books touched on this vast range of activities because books were products of artisanal labor, objects of economic exchange, vehicles of ideas, and elements in political and religious conflict. The ways ideas traveled in early modern Europe, the level of penetration of Enlightenment ideas in the society of the Old Regime, and the connections between the Enlightenment and the French Revolution are brilliantly treated by Darnton. In doing so he unearths a double paradox. It was the upper orders in society rather than the industrial bourgeoisie or the lower classes that first shook off archaic beliefs and took up Enlightenment ideas. And the state, which initially had suppressed those ideas, ultimately came to favor them. Yet at this high point in the diffusion and legitimation of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution erupted, destroying the social and political order in which the Enlightenment had flourished. Never again will the contours of the Enlightenment be drawn without reference to this work. Darnton has written an indispensable book for historians of modern Europe.
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Add this copy of The Business of Enlightenment: Publishing History of to cart. $34.49, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Emerald rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 1979 by Belknap Press.
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Add this copy of The Business of Enlightenment: Publishing History of to cart. $35.05, good condition, Sold by Midtown Scholar Bookstore rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Harrisburg, PA, UNITED STATES, published 1979 by Belknap Press.
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Very good in very good dust jacket. No markings. Binding tight. Jacket has minor fading on the spine. Nice copy. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. Audience: General/trade.
Add this copy of The Business of Enlightenment: Publishing History of to cart. $52.00, like new condition, Sold by Sequitur Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Boonsboro, MD, UNITED STATES, published 1979 by Belknap Press.
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Like New. Size: 8x5x1; Hardcover and dust jacket. Good binding and cover. Light edge wear. Clean, unmarked pages. xiv, 624 p., ill., 24 cm. Darnton explores some fascinating territory in the genre of histoire du livre and tracks the diffusion of Enlightenment ideas. He is concerned with the form of the thought of the great philosophes as it materialized into books and with the way books were made and distributed in the business of publishing. From the library Dr. Owen Hannaway. Hannaway was director of the Center for the History and Philosophy of Science at Johns Hopkins University. He authored numerous books and served as an editor of academic magazines in the history of science. Partial list of publications: Chemists and the Word: The Didactic Origins of Chemistry (1975); Observation, Experiment, and Hypothesis in Modern Physical Science (1985); The Evolution of Technology (1989); Science and the Practice of Medicine in the Nineteenth Century (1994); and The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages: Their Religious, Institutional and Intellectual Contexts (1996).
Add this copy of The Business of Enlightenment: Publishing History of to cart. $52.00, good condition, Sold by Library Market rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Waynesville, OH, UNITED STATES, published 1979 by Belknap Press.
Add this copy of The Business of Enlightenment: Publishing History of to cart. $55.50, very good condition, Sold by BingoBooks2 rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Vancouver, WA, UNITED STATES, published 1979 by Belknap Press.
Add this copy of The Business of Enlightenment: Publishing History of to cart. $70.55, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 1979 by Belknap Press.
Add this copy of The Business of Enlightenment: Publishing History of to cart. $101.19, new condition, Sold by GridFreed rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from North Las Vegas, NV, UNITED STATES, published 1979 by Belknap Press.
