A History of the Book in America An Extensive Republic

With this second volume of the five-volume History of the Book in America, the series is now complete (the volumes were published out of order). The essays here collectively embrace the hazy history between the American Colonial era and the Industrial Revolution. America's growing pains are evinced by the restless technological and social climate that was poorly recorded by this era's historians. It is all the more impressive, then, how this volume triumphs. The contributing essayists—over 30 of them, chiefly academics—present most conceivable angles of printing's history, including publishing, technology, politics, pedagogy, social class, and the various reader groups. Despite the subject breadth and diversity of authors, the book has a remarkable unity of voice, its sections elegantly knitted together by thoughtful introductions, each by Gross (early American history, Univ. of Connecticut; The Minutemen and Their World) or Kelley (history, American culture & women's studies, Univ. of Michigan; Learning To Stand and Speak).