The Coming of the Book

The emergence of the book was not merely an event of world historical importance, but the dawn of modernity. In this much praised work, Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin mesh together economic and technological history, sociology and anthropology, with the study of consciousness itself to root the development of printing in the changing social relations and ideological struggles of Western Europe. Now that the printed page may become a thing of the past, The Coming of the Book is more pertinent than ever.“It is one of the most exciting scholarly books ever written on printing ... This book is serious work—marvelously rich and stimulating.”—Hugh Trevor-Roper, Sunday Times

“It ranks easily among the most consequential works of recent French scholarship.”—Times Literary SupplementLucien Febvre, who died in 1956, was cofounder of the influential journal Annales, and is widely recognized as one of the foremost historians of the twentieth century. His other books include A Geographical Introduction to History, The Problem of Unbelief in the Sixteenth Century: The Religion of Rabelais and Life in Renaissance France.

Henri-Jean Martin was a distinguished historian of the development of early printing. His other publications include The French Book: Religion, Absolutism and Readership, 1585–1715 and The History and Power of Writing.