A History of the Book in America, Volume 5. The Enduring Book in Print in Postwar America

Citation

Wolf, K.H. (2011), "A History of the Book in America, Volume 5. The Enduring Book in Print in Postwar America", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 67 No. 3, pp. 562-574. https://doi.org/10.1108/00220411111124587

Introduction

The five‐volume set of A History of the Book in America is indeed a monumental highly recommended overview comprising the earlier‐published Volume 1. The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World, Volume 2. An Extensive Republic: Print, Culture, and Society in the New Nation, Volume 3. The Industrial Book: 1840‐1880, and Volume 4. Print in Motion: The Expansion of Publishing and Reading in the United States: 1880‐1940. Now here is the long‐awaited Volume 5. The Enduring Book: Print Culture in Postwar America. Yes, this volume “was so long in preparation that it is impossible to remember the names of everyone who contributed to it. The yellowed correspondences and notes … have themselves become elusive historical documents. But the gratitude of the editors has not faded … ” (Editors' and Authors' Acknowledgements). It was worthwhile waiting for this finale volume!

Caveat

This comprehensive history is an exemplar of a reviewer's nightmare as he/she cannot proffer full justice – i.e. a cursory review will not do – without listing either the 28 Chapters' titles or at least describe in some details aspects of the more important and more interesting sections. So allow me to suggest to those readers who wish a quick overview to first read Chapter 1. General Introduction: The Enduring Book in a Multimedia Age; followed by the Introduction that begins each of Parts I, II and III because these – can one name them “auxiliary or sub‐introductions”? – provide a concise overview of all 28 chapters. Thus cognitively/intellectually equipped, the reader can then tackle the huge amount of specific data; a little bit at a time, no doubt!

Brief overview

As to the publisher's advertisement (quoting): “The fifth volume of A History of the Book in America addresses the economic, social, and cultural shifts affecting print culture from World War II to the present. During this period factors such as the expansion of government, the growth of higher education, the climate of the cold war, globalization, and the development of multimedia and digital technologies influenced the patterns of consolidation and diversification established earlier”.

“The 33 contributors to the volume explore the evolution of the publishing industry and the business of bookselling. The histories of government publishing, law and policy, the periodical press, literary criticism, and reading – in settings such as schools, libraries, book clubs, self‐help programs, and collectors' societies – receive imaginative scrutiny as well”.

“The only comprehensive, interpretive survey of the history of the book in the USA since 1945, The Enduring Book demonstrates that the corporate consolidations of the last half‐century have left space for the independent publisher, that multiplicity continues to define American print culture, and that even in the digital age, the book endures”.

This brief overview is supplemented by Chapter 1. General Introduction: the Enduring Book in a Multimedia Age by covering some details (much paraphrasing/quoting) of the following seven sections: Is the Book Disappearing?, The Mixed Legacy of the Cold War, The Culture of the Sixties, Anxiety and Choice, Economic Concentrations, People Reading, and Texting Past and Future.

No, the book is not disappearing, even in the age dazzled by the internet, and hundreds of TV channels, enduring in the form it acquired centuries ago. Oriented matter remains the central resource for education, for exchange and communication in the arts and sciences, and as a focal point for public and political life. More books are published than ever. Some university libraries hold 40 to 140 million books. Of course, people read much else besides books: newspapers, magazines, forms, prescriptions, schedules, memos, manuals, among others. The percentage of consumers of books is systematically underestimated because it ignores work, school, and online reading. All jobs require reading skills. Yet, alongside reassuring continuity and growth in the production of books and the practices of reading, there is room for doubts about both, as deliberated in this introduction; “deep reading”, for instance, has been eroding owing to the “electronic post‐modernity”. In America, for example, “literary reading declined below 50 per cent; and there are new concerns about ‘aliteracy’ in the many people who are able to read but have chosen not too. Literary life may not be dying, but a passion for literature now is more arcane, eccentric, a specialized passion. Books have been pushed out of the center of the culture … they don't have the same primacy. The book endures but reading is endangered; ‘deep reading’ has changed to ‘search‐driven scanning’”. Much has changed in the publishing industry, many diverse aspects being covered in great details in Volume 5.

While the authors in this volume do not share a uniform sensibility on these diverse issues, each of the chapters adds a portrait that finds books enduring in a rapidly changing context in the decades since 1945. Much is said about the recent history, but there is disagreement about the near future;, e.g. the grave concern expressed about the preoccupation of publishers with blockbusters eliminating many good books from the marketplace. Yet, others are optimistic, observing that more valuable books are published than ever, and read by people, than before – owing to the distributional power of the chain bookstores. This is a key factor, among others, as described in chapter 5; and chapter 4 observes that the baby boom generation experienced a distinctive book‐oriented socialization, reading more than earlier generations. To provide some details, allow the following all‐too‐brief paraphrased/quoted comments.

The following abbreviated titles of the three parts' chapters will provide a glimpse of the diverse coverage of The Enduring Book Print Culture in Postwar America with some brief information of the aspects covered.

Part I. Technological, Business, and Government Foundations. Chapter 1. General Introduction. The age of television, computers, and digital information extends now into the age of the internet, which may become a “post‐typographic world”. Yet, the consumption of printing paper has risen steadily: the electronic‐digital age has been and remains a “great age of print on paper.” The post war revolutions in business, technology, and legal milieus of publishing changed dramatically the printed formats, and reader habits – yet they endured. Part I's broad theme deals with the dramatic change and core continuity of The Enduring Book.

This continuity is maintained by 648 publishing houses (according to the 1947 census), putting out 487 million books, when also 9,182 new book tiles were launched. An eye‐popping 282,500 new titles were published in 2005 by some 81,000 publishers, with some 3.1 billion copies sold. Yet, as explained, this statistic is wrong, because the census routinely undercounted publishers, titles, and sales by neglecting small non‐traditional and part‐time book publishers. The post war period (era of electronic communication) was a heroic age of the printed word, as the story of both concentration and decentralization, of blockbuster best sellers, and obscure specialized tomes are surveyed in chapters 2 to 4.

2. The Organization of the Book Publishing Industry. The trend was toward merger and consolidation in pursuit of the big book and the steady seller, as exemplified by the Harry Potter books boosting an entire category of book publishing. Simultaneously, new technologies for electronic typesetting and offset printing and new marketing strategies (e.g. selling on the internet), encouraged the growth of small to mid‐sized, part‐time, and quasi publishers – in 2004, the latter comprising 62,815 firms churning out a billion volumes with revenues of $14.2 billion. The book business flourished in post war America and continues into the twenty‐first century. Computerization then had a revolutionary impact on typesetting and printing, less so on delivery of text to the readers as the true electronic book is still in its infancy but is evolving fast. Yet, the electronic revolution has benefited the booksellers in both inventory control and distribution (see following chapters).

The various interesting aspects of internationalization, the domestic market, children's books, elementary and high school textbooks college books, professional and academic publishing, trade books and paperback, and of consolidation and facing the twenty‐first century of the book publishing is dealt with at some length.

Specialists may be interested then in the following chapters (the general reader advisably may skip them?). 3. Book Production Technology Since 1945, referring to book manufacturing technologies under the sub‐headings of Prepress: typography, prepress: page creation, digital prepress, press; presswork for book printing, post press; bindery techniques, digitally manufactured books, and short runs and “print on demand”. However, the true electronic book is still in its infancy.

Yet, though aided by technology, the success of the book in post war America grew more from demography, economic prosperity, and culture, as described next and by other authors explored in more detail in later chapters. Although the next few chapters are again mainly addressing those more‐deeply involved in the book publishing and selling industry, the general reader will find many fascinating snippets. So here, merely the headings and sub‐headings of the rest of Part I‘s chapter: 4. Markets and Audiences, deliberating influences on book buying, publishing industry marketing practice, and audience characteristics, concluding that the increased emphasis on education, having its impact both in schools and at work, fueled book reading and buying.

Logically, the following then deal with more specifics: Chapter 5. Selling the Product deals in rather great details (in section The Rise of the Modern Chain Bookstore, Bookselling: Chain Style, The Independents Come Back. From Mall Store to Superstore, Book Sales Leave the Bookstore: None book and Online Retailers, and The Marketing of Books, Retailers, and Print Culture) with the retail booksellers benefit from the electronic revolution in both inventory control and distribution (e.g. online selling), even though they have not as yet been adept at marketing their products. Newspapers and magazines also prospered after WWII; their business histories were similar, yet also different from, the history of book publishing. On one hand, as in the book sector, the magazines, and newspaper industries, were marked by merger, and consolidation.

As described in Chapter 6. The Right Niche: Consumer Magazines and Advertisers, major media corporations came to dominate the market, whereas Chapter 7. Wounded But Not Slain: the Orderly Retreat of the American Newspaper describes how large newspaper chains grew to prominence and how some became publicly traded corporations. On the other hand, despite consolidation, more magazine titles than ever were published, and even beleaguered newspapers found new niches in ethnic and suburban dailies and weeklies.

Statistical data in Tables IX to XIV, demonstrate certain trends: the new technology had a greater, more direct impact on magazines and newspapers than on books. First, TV soaked up enough of the US's leisure time to erode circulation; then came the internet, which provided information better than any book. In general, the online revolution hit magazines and especially newspapers harder than it hit books. Although the consumption of printing paper continued to rise, by 2005, as Chapter 7. Wounded But Not Slain: the Orderly Retreat of the American Newspaper points out, the American newspaper was in retreat; it was an orderly retreat, with the industry regrouping to meet the challenges of the new century.

This then changes in Chapter 8. Government Censorship Since 1945, because “intellectual freedom” certainly challenges all of us! Four factors that distinguishes the post‐World War II era are mentioned: the exponential growth of socially challenging expressions in a variety of media; the widespread institutionalization of a free‐speech ideology accompanied by an organized support system; the continued growth of cultural and ethnic pluralism; and the eventual development of counter‐movements on the left as well as the right. The author covers three historical periods, each representing a different complexion of competing cultural and political values – 1945‐1957: Traditional Values in a Climate of Fear (e.g. McCarthyism, casting a censorious pall over America); 1958‐1980: The Era of Constitutionalization‐Liberalism Predominant (e.g. ascendance of the “free‐speech society” and the modern doctrine of speech in constitutional jurisprudence); and 1980‐2000: The Extension of Free Speech Amid New Challenges (the free‐speech society has remained entrenched, though beset by the renewal of conservative attacks and the appearance of a new foe: the pro‐censorship Left, bearing the banner of “progressive censorship”). This essay about the American “culture wars over free speech revealed that the politics involved is rather complex as both the Left and Right present their own distinctive claims for and against free speech, with a great deal of disagreement prevailing even within these respective camps over the proper scope and limit of free speech.” Interestingly, much of this applies today to numerous western and other countries – see Julian Assange's case (The New York Times, 2010)! All this makes indeed worthwhile reading!

Inasmuch as censorship is a global problem, allow me to refer to Winston (2010, pp. 135‐41) and Baes (2008) who have discussed the “destruction of dangerous literature” by governments and religious groups, among others. Question: to what degree did the McCarthyism‐type (p. 136) infantilized thinking cause Americans to apostatize certain democratic principles and freedom in expressing “dangerous ideas in books”? Are there any types of casuistic American publications to explain the many political “democratic” contradictions?

Then the book returns to the following dryer topics of Chapter 9. American Copyright Law Since 1945. As it makes clear, publishing exists in a highly specialized and often controversial legal milieu of libel, censorship, copyright, and regulation. Late‐twentieth century changes in communication technology unsettled traditional law and resulted in new legal regimes, whereas in business, the cultural, political, and international forces were more powerful than technology.

As highlighted in the likewise dry Chapter 10. US Government Publishing in the Postwar Era, the federal institutions increasingly played an important role in publishing, i.e. it became a major “content provider”. This is obvious from the explosive growth of government publishing and the massive federal contribution to our information age.

Part II. Forms and Institutions of Mediation and Subsidy then deals in Chapters 11 to 22 with a rich and important story: the particularly fertile time of the luxuriant growth of subsidy and noncommercial support for publishing witnessed by the last half of the twentieth century. To explain, the introduction to Part II mentions “subvention” which is a publishing subsidy, i.e. a means to bring financial support to initially help raise a book into print. Although this may still be rare, myriad forms of subsidy have underlain the industry from the beginning, as non‐commercial forces have shaped and subsidized books as no other manufactured product, with some minor exceptions. Those who care about art, politics, racial and ethnic solidarity, minority languages, the sciences and humanities, education, and religion have always subsidized the publication of books, magazines, and newspapers. The last half of the twentieth century especially has undergone the luxuriant growth of subsidy and non‐commercial publishing support.

As pointed out, the enormous (billions) public subsidy‐investment in literacy education assisted in the training of society's citizens to become “code breakers”, namely the readers. Yet, beyond the schools and teachers as “sponsors of literacy”, there are many more agents involved in teaching and learning to read and write, exemplified by parents and relatives (e.g. grandparents), ministers, military officers, bureaucrats and employers, private and public programs, and numerous authors. Literacy has generally become so vital (indeed globally) that is was and still is heavily subsidized in too many ways to count. So, another “sponsor of literacy” arose: self‐publishing. Readers must know what to read as well as how to read. Subsidizing and guiding ideas into print has long been the essence of cultural politics.

The mainstream trade book publishing in the post‐war era was the intensification of commercialism, as deliberated in Part I. Part II tells a more complicated story, starting with the two‐section Chapter 11. Building on the 1940’s: Section I. A D‐Day for American Books in Europe: Overseas Editions, Inc. 1944‐1945. This chapter is particularly interesting because of the importance of “books as psychological weapons” during WWII to “disintoxicate the minds of people” liberated by US forces in Europe, for example. The author just recently offered a more complied summary of this little‐known story that began “with a surprising cargo (crates of books) that joined the flood of troop reinforcements, weapons and ammunition, food, and medicine onto Normandy beaches after D‐Day invasion of June 1944 (Hench, 2010)”.

Section II. The American Book Publishers Council, then, has five sub‐sections: Freedom and Rights, American Books Abroad, Technical Improvements, Reading Development, and Merger and Demise. The authors offer case studies of how commercial publishing in America was revived after World War II through cooperative ventures between publishers and government and publishers and professional associations, building lasting partnerships that helped to carry their products into every corner of American life.

Chapter 12. Editorial Vision and the Role of the Independent Publisher describes the independent publishers' continuing influence despite the “vast corporatization of the publishing industry”. Concentration and conglomeration actually opened up new opportunities for independents in many niches and margins of the book business. The great age of the independent publisher was not over: a relief to book lovers. Serious authorship and literary criticism continued in the face of commercialism.

Chapter 13. Literary Culture, Criticism, and Bibliography comprises three Sections: I. Cultures of Letters, Cultures of Criticism; II. The Critical Climate; and III. Bibliography and the Meaning of “Text” (see Darnton, 2009). The authors explore the post‐war American literary culture, which depended heavily on not‐for‐profit mediating institutions exemplified by the small literary magazine, the independent bookstore, and the university. Even commercial magazines helped to nurture struggling authors of serious novels and non‐fiction books, as described in Chapter 14. Magazines and the Making of Authors.

Now to the alternative newspapers: another field of publishing, which has always been heavily subsidized by its partisans. Both the fragmentation of political authority and the falling costs of offset printing made the last half of the twentieth century a golden age of special‐interest press.

Chapter 15. The Oppositional Press surveys the wide variety of small papers of the 1960s, ranging from hippie, counterculture, leftist sheets to the John Birch Society publications, the latter sometimes used by academics against their rivals.

Chapter 16. The Black Press and the Radical Print Culture examines one segment of alternative journalism: the black press. Starting in 1827 with the first African American newspaper in the US, this field of publication has been amazingly varied since then: some were commercially successful whereas others operated at a loss.

As pointed out previously, public schools and public libraries were crucial in supporting reading and publishing textbooks. Chapter 2 describes some of the powerful commercial publishers, which dominated the textbook sector, and that these publishers, were often manipulated, especially in some key states, by political interests. This political pressure, cajolery, and censorship non‐commercial phenomena of the textbook business is deliberated in Chapter 17. Where the Customer is King: the Textbook in American Culture. Schools and libraries alike sponsored literacy: books are a “public good” that should be made freely available to everyone at taxpayer expense.

Chapter 18. Libraries, Books, and the Information Age then deals with the post‐war politics of libraries, including the query of “books versus computers” – but the key issues really remained to be “how we read and learn, and how we live together”.

Then Part II considers the realm of subsidy (i.e. billions of dollars) of science and academic publishing, because the impact of university‐based research and teaching/learning) on publishing cannot be overstated.

Thus, Chapter 19. Science Books Since 1945 and Chapter 20. US Academic Publishing in the Digital Age trace the growth of both commercial and non‐commercial academic publishing in the USA (Caveat. From a scientist's viewpoint, this chapter may well be the most disappointing one.) The so‐called STM (scientific, technical, medical) publications gave rise to large commercial publishers, in particular turning out thousands of international scientific journals (12,000 in 2005); Elsevier (I was associated for many years, from late 1960s to late 1990s, as author, co‐editor, founding editor and book‐review editor with several of their international publications) counted nearly 2,000 journals. Additionally, there were the small, not‐for‐profit university presses' lesser‐subsidized scholarly books and magazines.

As Chapter 20 explains, support from universities and from academic purchasing declined in the digital age, resulting many university presses to struggle in the 1990s and 2000s. A further explanation is in order.

Having personally experienced for several decades in several countries as an academic the “publish or perish” syndrome, allow me to recite this part of Part II's introduction as this phenomenon indeed has involved just about every academic. It is true, that in key ways all academic publishing was subsidized as governments and foundations directly provided research grants, especially to the STM trio. Even the most obscure humanity research was often subsidized, as producing books and articles was part of the academic contract. For example, in my field of earth‐science/geology the entire process (from research – peer review – authorship to scholarly journal or book to university library) unfolded entirely outside the commercial market. Tens of thousands of scholarly titles were produced each year, many with only a handful of readers; some claim that many articles in reality had no readers! In the 2000s, this academic research – publishing system came under financial pressure, so that scholars called for more subsidy: junior academics needed the books and articles for tenure and promotions. The important question of the “research universities” versus “teaching‐only universities” was ignored.

Chapter 21. The Perseverance of Print‐Bound Saints: Protestant Book Publishing then describes the very influential non‐commercial forces of the publishing of religious books and periodicals. The subsiding of them has began even long before Gutenberg set the Bible into type. In the US, in the early nineteenth century, enormous press runs of Bibles produced by religious publishing societies were all subsidized, many given away for free, as demonstrated by the presence of Bibles in thousands of hotels and motels, for instance. The number of Bibles goes into the 250 million plus!

Next, Chapter 22. Bilingual Nation: Spanish‐Language Books in the US Since 1960s deals with the astonishingly diverse realm of non‐English language publishing, characterized by an intricate mixture of commercial and non‐commercial activity. Spanish is not a foreign language in America; both the language and publishing has been here since the beginning of European settlement. But Spanish publishing changed in the post‐war era as Latino immigration patterns changed: in the last decade of the twentieth century Spanish publishing prospered, and has been well subsidized. By 2005 about 80,000 Spanish books were published annually, indicative of a lucrative commercial business.

Part II concludes by emphasizing that in the age of television, computers, and the internet, a dire prediction has appeared: the death of the book (for Australian viewpoints; see Young, 2007; Hartley, 2009; Howkins, 2009; and for a general opinion, see McNeely and Wolverton, 2008). Sales may even increase. But the story of Part II is not about commerce. To reiterate: the staying power of books, periodicals, and journals was presumably derived from non‐commercial support. But this has not happened, and in the twenty‐first century the books are alive and well. With print‐in‐demand and self‐publishing technology, the book may witness a new renaissance, with everyone an author/publisher, as exemplified by 23,000 mostly ordinary people bringing out books in America.

Part III. Reading, Identity, and Community. I found this part again rather appealing to my generalist's taste across the humanities as it deals less with “dry” aspects, for example. The general reader (but especially educators dealing with various problems of literacy, for instance) will like these chapters, together with several others!

The Introduction to this part sets the stage by referring to the following well‐known books on reading: Harold Bloom's (2000) How to Read and Why and Mortimer Adler's (1940) How to Read a Book. Bloom asserted that the purpose of reading “well” was to attain both pleasure and insight, permitting individuals “a more capacious sense of life” … “only deep, constant reading fully establishes and augments an autonomous self”. Yet, he skeptically believed that a more accomplished reader might not benefit society at large, saying that one should not attempt to improve other people and the world by instructing them what and how to read, because the pleasures of reading indeed are selfish rather than social. Adler, however, emphasized that reading great books ought to bring about a good society. That I totally disagree with Bloom's illogical cognitively and intellectually deleterious opinion is another story beyond both the book being reviewed as well as my review. Going even beyond Adler: the basic, only simplistically stated reason allowed in one sentence here, is the fact that globally everyone emphasizes that all natural and social problems can only be solved through education – and that is founded on knowledge, information, … and learning and reading! Others would agree with me … read on.

Chapter 23. The Enduring Reader then mentions the post‐World War II Pelican/Penguin (1947) book Good Reading: a Guide to the World's Best Books (originally published in 1932 by the National Council of Teachers of English). This book was part of a genre that also included Bloom's and Adler's books. However, the latter's volume was strikingly different in both tone and emphasis from Bloom's. Adler established “rules” for readers to follow as they mastered a list of “great books” heavily weighted toward philosophy; to him reading is a “kind of conversation” (proposing great book discussion groups) with the author; whereas Bloom focused on imaginative literature.

As the overview in Chapter 23 points out, themes of both self and society – sometimes in tension, sometimes overlapping – have permeated readers' attitudes and behaviors since 1950. Bloom's insistence on regarding reading as bounded by the self seems misguided, whereas Adler's outward‐looking philosophy (if not his political vision) was closer to what readers in many contexts actually do. Part III makes that point by exploring the social and the personal uses of reading in several settings, addressing preferentially selected social groups, as exemplified by …

The reader may wish to consult the chapter on The Perils of Education in Winston (2010, pp. 141‐54) to access another discussion of the context of literacy.

Chapter 24. Reading the Language of the Heart: the “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous. The author observes that an individual's private, silent reading from the “Big Book” echoes the association's text as acquired object of study in AA meetings. Thus, “the language of the heart” enables isolated individuals to achieve “human connectedness” through the practices of empathy and identification.

The essay of Chapter 25. Books and the Media: the Silent Spring Debate, then, moves from the explicitly therapeutic uses of print to the function of books in the political area: specifically to the well‐known case of Rachel Carson's highly influential Silent Spring (1962). As an extension of Chapter 19 on science books this environmental exposé exemplifies how one specific book can have a global, occasionally controversial (p. 355) influence, as part of the growth of culture scientifique in the USA (see also the section Silent Spring in Winston, 2010, pp. 71‐4). The publishing history of Carson's controversial investigation of pesticides is examined to illuminate the reciprocal relationships between books and other media; the mediating function of news and opinion about books; the transformation of controversy into publicity; and the access to the mass audience the modern media system provides. Thus, here is an exemplar demonstrating how these socially produced phenomena condition the experience of the private reader. As to environmental problems, pollution has become globally worse – and although scientists have a well‐phrased Manifesto (Winston, 2010, chapter 12), solutions are still wanting.

Then, Chapter 26. The Chat‐An‐Hour Social and Cultural Club: African American Women Readers, like the previous chapter, focuses on an instance of reading as an activity of a formally constituted group, exemplified by the just‐mentioned women's organization in post‐war Houston, which challenged racial stereotypes while fostering sisterly bonds among participants. The purpose: “turning to literature for purposes of their own”, and as a consequence blurring the boundaries between “self‐improvement and social progress”. Another special group is examined in …

Chapter 27. Book Collecting and the Book as Object, which recounts the history of the networks linking private book collectors, arguing that the motives for building collections have grown more specialized and personal. I should know about that as a bibliophile! Since about 1955 I collected hundreds of books on science for professional research, then included those covering several of the humanities (as a young independent scholar; see Gross, 1982/1993) – and over the next decades collected about 100,000 reprints, logically catalogued and stored in ten to 12 filing cabinets (until the copiers made duplicating of articles easier).

The final Chapter 28. Valuing Reading, Writing, and Books in a Post‐ Typographic World locates reading into the brave new world of digital texts as a technological innovation, which has modified long‐standing definitions of “reader”, “author”, and “book”. The solitary, temporally circumscribed, reflective approach of Harold Bloom's essence of reading is at odds with the “more dynamic” fluid properties of the words on the screen. According to this chapter, the digital environment may buttress as well as undermine the authority of the printed book, as extensively discussed in several recent books (Young, 2007; McNeely and Wolverton, 2008; Howkins, 2009; and Hartley, 2009). For some additional analyses of our digital world, see also Winston (2010, pp. 155‐77).

This is another interesting chapter for all specialist and generalist readers alike, divided into four sections: A Crises of Competing Paradigms, What Does Written Communication Do To Us and For Us?, What Do Books Do To Us and For Us? And Valuing Backward and Forward.

A final, unnumbered chapter or Statistical Appendix, entitled Reading the Data on Books, Newspapers, and Magazines, then is followed by a good must‐read Notes providing references to many publications. A satisfatory Index complements the text, although recently developed softwares – to eliminate the older handwritten cards in preparing an index – could have been utilized in expanding the coverage of a book of 597 text pages?!). Figures and tables, a list of contributors, and the editors' and authors acknowledgements precede the main text.

Second caveat

It stands to reason that one book, e.g. the present one reviewed, cannot offer a complete coverage of data that would satisfy all experts; an example being from my viewpoint as a scientist the rather meagre 14 pages of Science Books Since 1945. More comprehensive summaries of any topic dealt with Volume 5 are easily accessible in various types of Encyclopedias (e.g. Krebs, 2008) and other books. So, as an earth scientist, for instance, I have no leg to stand on to say that the important “turbulent history” of the unifying principle (a natural law now?) of plate tectonics has been dismissed by a one‐sentence statement, precisely because there are dozens of books on its history (including North America's involvement) commencing with the early idea of continental drift. However, there are numerous scientifically significant books that could have been mentioned, even if only briefly, exemplified by those dealing with the Gaia hypothesis and Complexity theory and the Encyclopedias related to Systems Analysis, among others.

Presentation

The overall layout or format of the book is logically divided into three parts, with the chapters progressing systematically from some rather specific “dryer” publishing‐related topics to more general‐interest ones near the end.

The writing style of presentation is, of course, that of most well‐ prepared research‐data‐based books: the style may be that of academics, but is lucid, clear, mostly jargon‐free, with no esoterically too‐lengthy pseudo‐sophisticated or woolly constructed phraseologies (as that occasionally encountered in highfaluting philosophy books).

Inasmuch as I have mentioned in my past book reviews that I prefer longer chapters to be divided into sub‐headed shorter sections, it is clear that that request applies to several chapters in the present book. Reason: nearly without exceptions, I prefer Contents to list also the subheadings allowing the reader a quick overview of the book. Such more‐complete Contents also supplements, the sometimes rather inadequate Index! – although I must say that in the present book the Index is perhaps sufficient. Indeed, I have seen rare academic books that have two Contents – one one‐page long, comprising only the major chapter titles, followed by a second five‐page one with the major titles listing also the subtitles. In some multi‐authored books this latter approach took the place of an Index!

I do like especially the General Introduction offering a quick overview, followed by a shorter Introduction of the three parts. The detailed deliberations of the Notes are also highly recommended.

The continuity of books' influence

That the book has had a fundamental influence in ways too diverse and complex to deal with here, has been extensively deliberated by numerous researchers in many books, e.g. Barnard et al. (1999‐2011) specifically for Britain and in general by Suarez and Woudhuysen (2010). Also, in addition to the books by Young (2007), McNeely and Wolverton (2008), Darnton (2009), Hartley (2009), and Howkins (2009), the section The Print Revolution in Rifkin (2009) is recommended (pp. 206‐70) – in particular the historical influence of the printed book on “universal” literacy and education is rather fundamental to perhaps solving even today's numerous social problems. Not to forget is that during human history certain books' content have been considered to be “dangerous” and have therefore been destroyed (see Winston, 2010, pp. 135‐41; Baes, 2008). The present book only touches this topic.

Yes, “the book” will be with us for the foreseeable future, according the conclusions reached by the book under review as well by the previously mentioned authors, although it has been and will be further modified in various ways through digitization, for example. Progress and evolution in information technology, data storage, education, styles of reading and writing, … , will likewise change and affect “printed culture”.

Readership

Most chapters of this book are really for various types of “intellectual interest groups” as well as for certain experts or specialists, i.e. the “general reader” (one often wonders what that phrase actually entails!) may appear to be somewhat ignored. Yet, among the latter there are the vast number of readers interested in books and what their educational, social, political, … , even anthropological contributions are. Those readers who read the earlier anthologies by Marcus and Sollors (2009), Jones (1997), and Spiller et al. (2009) will wish to delve into the this book as this new History will add to the “fractal geometry of American culture”, as the first‐mentioned authors of their 200 essay‐compendium called it.

Could a Philosophy of Literacy comprise all the humanistic phenomena mentioned previously? Most chapters offer sections dealing with these “general cognitive/intellectual” aspects of books so that they indeed do appeal nicely to this general readership! But a caveat is in order: the large amount of “non‐cripping‐style” descriptions does require some motivation to wade through the frequently catalogue‐type and matter‐of‐fact “unemotional” information.

Consequently, I especially recommend to the general reader the chapters of Part III – after reading the main Introduction and the several sub‐Introductions referred to previously. As to the query whether readers outside the USA may obtain useful comparative information related to the history of books, consider...

Is American book history mirrored globally?

That this is unequivocally so, is to be highlighted by the two sets of publications by Barnard et al. (1999‐2011) and Suarez and Woudhuysen (2010). Naturally, part of the historical story of the American book applies in particular to western cultures as reflected in some books I read and reviewed (see Young, 2007; McNeely and Wolverton, 2008; Howkins, 2009; Hartley, 2009), because if there are any similarities in several countries' cultural, social, political, economic, educational, and other characteristics then there ought to be rather identical literary and reading habits, for instance. One interesting fact: the Government Censorship phenomenon in America, described in chapter 8, may well be of interest to many international readers of both democratic and non‐democratic countries!

In other words, the history of books ought to be similar and overlapping, even intertwined, when considered in particular in the context of various Western English‐language countries as exemplified by Australia, Canada, the UK, New Zealand, etc. That writing, printing, and books have a global history is well described by Boorstin, 1983). Inasmuch as English is now increasingly the international language means that many other countries' people use English‐language non‐fiction books in their higher education. When I worked for several years in Saudi Arabia, I noticed that many university texts in the sciences and humanities where imported from England and the USA, and even the Saudi professors wrote some texts in English! Yet, to be certain, there are many historical situations of the history of books that are unique to both the US and other countries. A neat research topic indeed!