The Global Histories of Books: Methods and Practices

New Directions in Book History

by Elleke Boehmer (Editor), Rouven Kunstmann (Editor), Priyasha Mukhopadhyay (Editor)

This book is an edited volume of essays that showcases how books played a crucial role in making and materialising histories of travel, scientific exchanges, translation, and global markets from the late-eighteenth century to the present. While existing book historical practice is overly dependent on models of the local and the national, we suggest that approaching the book as a cross-region, travelling – and therefore global- object offers new approaches and methodologies for a study in global perspective. By thus studying the book in its transnational and inter-imperial, textual, inter-textual and material dimensions, this collection will highlight its key role in making possible a global imagination, shaped by networks of print material, readers, publishers and translators.

344 pages, Hardcover

Published August 9, 2017