Bokhistoria

In this readable, informative account, Books Bytes and Business uses book publishing to study challenge and change in the knowledge-based industries. Currently experiencing fierce levels of competition, extreme financial pressures and threatened by technology-induced obsolescence, the industry is used to analyse the vulnerability of traditional business models and the emergence of new opportunities and an exciting future.

In 1450 very few English men or women were personally familiar with a book; by 1850, the great majority of people daily encountered books, magazines, or newspapers. This book explores the history of this fundamental transformation, from the arrival of the printing press to the coming of steam.

From the early Sumerian clay tablet through to the emergence of the electronic text, this Companion provides a continuous and coherent account of the history of the book.

The period 1678-1730 was a decisive one not only in Western political history but also in the history of the British press. Changing conditions for political expression and an expanding book trade enabled unprecedented opportunities for political activity. The Women of Grub Street argues that women already at work in the London book trade were among the first to seize those new opportunities for public political expression. The Women of Grub Street examines not only women writers, but also printers, booksellers, ballad-singers, hawkers, and other producers and distributors ofprinted texts.