Volume 26, Number 16 · October 25, 1979
The Power of the Press
By D.P. Walker
The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early-modern Europe
by Elizabeth L. Eisenstein
Cambridge University Press, two volumes, 794 pp., $49.50 the set
This is a good and important book, and, in spite of its formidable length, the author's clear and forceful style makes it a pleasure to read. Given the huge literature on the history of printing, especially in its early stages, it may seem surprising that there should be room for a large work on the effects of this invention. But, although Eisenstein has a few predecessors in the field, notably Lucien Febvre and H.J. Martin in L'Apparition du livre (1958), and, more embarrassingly, Marshall McLuhan, whom she fully acknowledges, this is in fact a strangely neglected subject.
Review, 2329 words
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