{"product_id":"divine-art-infernal-machine-the-reception-of-printing-in-the-west-from-first-impressions-to-the-sense-of-an-ending-paperback-softback-9780812222166","title":"Divine Art, Infernal Machine; The Reception of Printing in the West from First Impressions to the Sense of an Ending (Paperback \/ softback) 9780812222166","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eDivine Art, Infernal Machine\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eThe Reception of Printing in the West from First Impressions to the Sense of an Ending\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eElizabeth L. Eisenstein (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9780812222166\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 10 September 2012\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e384 pages, 24 illus.\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.544 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\"Eisenstein's research is impressive, reaching far and wide across languages and centuries. Her knowledge of the history of publication engages the wealth of recent scholarship and extends as far back as Roman copyists. . . . Her breadth enables her to identify topoi and their mutations; to observe long-term trends, diminishing ripples, and delayed reactions; and to distinguish what is new or newly dressed in authors' concerns and readers' complaints.\" (\u003ci\u003eJournal of Scholarly Publishing\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere 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.\u003cbr\u003e In \u003ci\u003eDivine Art, Infernal Machine\u003c\/i\u003e, Eisenstein, author of the hugely influential \u003ci\u003eThe Printing Press as an Agent of Change\u003c\/i\u003e, 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.\u003cbr\u003e 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eList of Illustrations\u003cbr\u003e Preface\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 1. First Impressions\u003cbr\u003e Prologue: Some Foundation Myths\u003cbr\u003e Initial Reactions: Pros and Cons\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 2. After Luther: Civil War in Christendom\u003cbr\u003e Printing as a Protestant Weapon\u003cbr\u003e Pamphlet Warfare: ''The Media Explosion'' of the 1640s\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 3. After Erasmus: Propelling the Knowledge Industry\u003cbr\u003e Celebrating Technology\/Advancement of Learning\u003cbr\u003e Overload: Lost in the Crowd\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 4. Eighteenth-Century Attitudes\u003cbr\u003e Prelude and Preview\u003cbr\u003e Literary Responses: Mystic Art\/Mercenary Trade\u003cbr\u003e Politics in a New Key: The Atlantic Revolutions\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 5. The Zenith of Print Culture (Nineteenth Century)\u003cbr\u003e The Revolutionary Aftermath\u003cbr\u003e Tories and Radicals in Great Britain\u003cbr\u003e Steam Presses, Railway Fiction\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 6. The Newspaper Press: The End of Books?\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 7. Toward the Sense of an Ending (Fin de Sie'cle to the Present)\u003cbr\u003e Notes\u003cbr\u003e Bibliography\u003cbr\u003e Index\u003cbr\u003e Acknowledgments\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"University of Pennsylvania Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52745260826904,"sku":"9780812222166","price":25.45,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/divine-art-infernal-machine-the-reception-of-printing-in-the-west-from-first-impressions-to-the-sense-of-an-ending-paperback-softback-9780812222166","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}