A History of the Book in America (5 volume set)

Edited by David D. Hall

A History of the Book in America (5 volume set)
  • Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4696-2164-7
    Published: September 2014

Buy this Book

To purchase online via an independent bookstore, visit Bookshop.org
The five volumes in A History of the Book in America offer a sweeping chronicle of our country's print production and culture from colonial times to the end of the twentieth century. This interdisciplinary, collaborative work of scholarship examines the book trades as they have developed and spread throughout the United States; provides a history of U.S. literary cultures; investigates the practice of reading and, more broadly, the uses of literacy; and links literary culture with larger themes in American history.

Volume 1
The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World
Edited by Hugh Amory and David D. Hall
664 pp., 51 illus.

Volume 2
An Extensive Republic: Print, Culture, and Society in the New Nation, 1790-1840
Edited by Robert A. Gross and Mary Kelley
712 pp., 66 illus.

Volume 3
The Industrial Book, 1840-1880
Edited by Scott E. Casper, Jeffrey D. Groves, Stephen W. Nissenbaum, and Michael Winship
560 pp., 43 illus.

Volume 4
Print in Motion: The Expansion of Publishing and Reading in the United States, 1880-1940
Edited by Carl F. Kaestle and Janice A. Radway
688 pp., 74 illus.

Volume 5
The Enduring Book: Print Culture in Postwar America
Edited by David Paul Nord, Joan Shelley Rubin, and Michael Schudson
632 pp., 95 illus.

Reviews

"A model of scholarly publication and institutional cooperation. . . . A timely achievement and a great one. . . . Without university presses, we would still be waiting for HBA."--Journal of Scholarly Publishing

"What the History of the Book series shows so clearly is that the world we know, the communities to which we already belong, are reified and reinforced by books. Such is the incredible and incredibly flexible power of this primitive technology. Behold the book: It is limited but perfect."--Humanities magazine

"One of the great scholarly projects of the late twentieth century and early twenty-first centuries. . . .The History is a miracle of extensive and intensive scholarship, sustained over decades and across continents."--The New England Quarterly