The Evolution of the Book (review)

The Evolution of the Book. By Frederick G. Kilgour (New York, Oxford University Press, 1998) 180 pp. $35.00.

At first glance, this work represents an interdisciplinary venture that might commend itself to readers of this journal. The author, a library-systems analyst, believes that the theory of "punctuated equilibrium," developed by evolutionary theorists to explain certain discontinuities, is applicable to the history of the book. But although this notion is repeatedly asserted, it is nowhere persuasively demonstrated. The borrowed terminology serves simply as a modish way of packaging a familiar narrative that begins with Sumerian clay tablets (anachronistically described as "incunables on clay") and ends with speculation about some future "electronic book" that presumably will replace the text on the screen.

For his narrative, the author draws indiscriminately on secondary accounts that include several outdated general surveys. Chapters on writing materials, record keeping, and the like are interwoven with chunks of potted history taken from standard Western civilization texts. There is a chapter on the rise (and decline) of Islam but none on seemingly relevant developments in other regions, such as China, India, or pre-Columbian America.

The presentation of the major changes that are likened to "punctuated equilibria" lacks coherence. First we are told that there have been "four transformations" during the past 5,000 years: clay tablet, papyrus roll, codex, and "electronic book" (3). Then we are presented with a chart that illustrates not four but seven "punctuations of equilibria" (5); printing, steam power, and offset printing have been inserted between codex and electronic book. The chapter headings follow yet a different pattern; "the Greco-Roman World" intervenes between papyrus roll and codex. Islam and Western Christendom are placed between the codex (oddly assigned the dates a.d. 100-700) and printing. No special niche is assigned to the periodical press. Journals and newspapers get mentioned here and there, chiefly between a section on bookbinding and one on typewriters (123-124).

All changes are explained by repeated (and vacuous) references to "the ever increasing informational needs of society." The chapters on nineteenth- and twentieth-century developments celebrate numerous "major technical advances" that do not appear on the chart listing "punctuated equilibria." The penultimate chapter on "computer driven book production" offers minutely detailed descriptions of flexographic and electrostatic printing processes, together with a spotty treatment of recent trends in U.S. book publishing.

The work concludes with speculation about the eventual supersession of the printed book by some "yet to be introduced successful electronic book" (160). Well before this event occurs, one hopes that someone will write a more successful brief account of the book's evolution.

Elizabeth L. Eisenstein
Washington, D.C.

...