Book history can easily be mistaken for a narrow field which is of interest only to specialists and bibliophiles. Admittedly, methods such as descriptive bibliography do seem highly technical and dry. However, in recent decades, the history of books has developed into a veritable history of human communication. Rather than reducing books to their function as containers of texts (which is only one of their many functions in any case), books are investigated as material artifacts in their own right. As such, they provide valuable insights into their production, trade, ownership, and use. Given how extensively our profession relies on sources in book form, the history of books has much to offer to historians of a wide range of specializations.
While the field is by no means limited to the study of printed books, historians working on books produced in the first few centuries after Gutenberg’s famous invention of printing with moveable type in the mid-fifteenth century have been at the forefront of book history. For this reason, we will familiarize ourselves with classic and more recent scholarship in the history of early modern European books to acquire both an understanding of the historiography and the methods developed by book historians. During sessions held at Berlin’s libraries, we will have an opportunity to work with early modern prints to evaluate the interpretations offered by the scholarly literature and practice the approaches discussed in class.
- Course owner: Dr. Tobias Graf