A History of the Book in America, Volume One: The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World (review)

A History of the Book in America, Volume One: The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World. Edited by Hugh Armory and David D. Hall. New York: Cambridge University Press, in association with the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass., 2000. xxiv, 638 pp. $125.00. 0-521-48256-9.

With the appearance of the first volume of a projected five-volume set, the eagerly awaited history of the book in America makes its impressive debut. While one should not necessarily judge the whole project by its first part, this work may well be a foretaste for waiting readers of what lies ahead. This volume treats the period from the early seventeenth to near the end of the eighteenth century. Succeeding volumes will deal with the periods 1790-1840, 1840-80, 1880-1945, and 1945-95, each with two or more scholar-editors--all of whom serve on the series editorial board, along with others, including Ellen S. Dunlap, John B. Hench, and Marcus A. McCorison, who represent the American Antiquarian Society's Program in the History of the Book in American Culture, the principal sponsor of the series. As this work is completed, it will provide a thorough coverage of its topic and likely stand as the comprehensive treatment for some time, not least because of its scholarly authority. The editors of this first volume, long associated with the early period of books in North America and the resources of Harvard University, set the tone for the volume and the series.

Happily for the reader, and this reviewer, the first part of the introduction by David Hall lays out the premises of the volume and the series generally. This survey, which traces beginnings and changes in the history of the American book, broadly conceived and defined early on, is grounded in the context of the Reformation movements of the sixteenth century and after, the development of European national states and their colonies, and the mercantile capitalism prevailing in the period. These general movements or trends receive excellent summary treatment, as do other issues in cultural studies that condition the approaches of the contributors--orality, writing, and print; literacy and illiteracy; print and the public sphere; authorship and intellectual property; the "Reading Revolution"; among others (2-12). A relatively uncommon practice in academic life, the several and detailed apologetic explanations of the editors provide insight into the delicate nature of current literary and historical scholarship at century's end.

What can readers expect from this volume? The editors answer that "this book is not an encyclopedia but a narrative history. Accordingly, anyone seeking information about a particular printer or bookseller, library or writer will often be disappointed. . . . Nor is it a histoire totale of society and culture," though the work touches on both of these. "The central purpose . . . is to provide a sustained description of book-trade practices, including journalism . . . printing and bookselling in the colonies." They add that "[n]o less central is the history we provide of reading and writing, and of efforts to regulate writers, readers, printers and booksellers." They close their introduction with the admission that "in experimenting with a fuller synthesis than heretofore attempted, we have often been reminded of what we did not know" (13). A second part of the introduction is a brief essay on "The Europeans' Encounter with Native Americans" (13-25), the primary coverage of that topic in the volume.

The editors and fellow contributors have clearly studied their charge and the material to be included, and the resulting outline is the first step in ordering the narrative. The style makes for comfortable reading and avoids much of the sometimes offputting, sterile, academic prose that one too often finds. Taken as a whole, the work fulfills its unwritten goal of enticing cultural scholars and even general readers into becoming interested in the American book.

The publisher tells...