The Flow of News in Early Modern Europe

the history of the newspaper has often walked hand in hand with that of the nation. Although attention to manuscript culture has softened the dominance of the newspaper, and the "nation" has become the "public sphere," the history of news is still deeply tied to medium and to the history of individual states. In News Networks in Early Modern Europe, Joad Raymond and Noah Moxham seek to push away from these foci to look at the flow of news via multiple mediums over international borders. This is a big book, coming in at 869 pages and packed with thirty-seven essays. It is divided into three sections: "Networks," "Modes," and "Studies." Owing to its size, I will not address the individual essays. Instead, I will comment on the larger themes of the book and the goals of the editors and authors.

The editors' main aim is to shift away from viewing the management of news as a phenomenon within a nation to focus on the way in which news moves across state boundaries. As Raymond states in his essay, the study of news history rested on "a posited relationship between a national spirit, the spirit of the people, and the press that it creates" (104). He notes that, over the years, this interpretation has eroded, and he argues that the best way to understand the history of news is by monitoring networks and allowing them to tell the geographical story. I applaud this shift, and the collection of essays does a nice job of illustrating it. The volume moves from the Iberian Peninsula to the Ottoman Empire and most places in between. The majority of the essays do not center on one locality but follow news as it traverses international boundaries. A number of the essays also point to the role of certain types of individuals in making these networks possible. Diplomats make a big showing, especially in the essays by Tracey A. Sowerby and Jason Peacey, and Elizabeth Williamson demonstrates the importance of travelers in spreading news.

The second goal of this volume is to put multiple news mediums into conversation rather than focusing solely on the newspaper. Henry Ettinghausen and Massimo Petta look at printed single-event newsletters. Nikolaus Schobesberger and Renate Pieper examine handwritten newsletters. Ruth Ahnert, Tracey A. Sowerby, and André Belo focus on letters but acknowledge the role of oral news, newsletters, and printed newsletters. Helmer Helmers addresses news maps but also brings in chronicles, almanacs, and novels based on news. For many of the essays, genre is not the central concern. Carmen Espejo, Stéphane Haffemayer, Virginia Dillon, and Chiara Palazzo follow events rather than formats. Mario Infelise traces the term gazzetta as it appeared in various news forms. In fact, the essay that follows the introduction looks at the postal system rather than news itself, since one of the main contentions of the volume is that "postal routes formed the spine of news communications, shaping all printed and manuscript forms that follow, including periodicity" (10). This means that the volume persuasively shifts the discussion away from the print revolution toward the multiple and fluid ways in which news moved during the period.

The editors and authors are also very aware of new tools with which to examine news and the networks that spread it. Numerous essays use and discuss the importance of digitalized collections and quantitative analysis using software programs. Many authors see the digital humanities as offering a new way to examine news and the networks that spread it. Raymond and Ahnert, in two of the early essays in the volume, advocate the use of social network analysis. Brendan Dooley and Javier Díaz Noci call for more searchable transcriptions of various news sources. Nikolaus Schobesberger, Nicholas Brownlees, and Sheila Barker use databases. Many of these essays read as calls to action. They desire the digitalization of more sources and the standardization of search terms. Although this is invigorating, the...