1400s
1500s
1600s
A01=Jennifer Summit
academic
antiquarian
Author_Jennifer Summit
books
britain
Category=DSBB
Category=GLM
Category=NHT
early modern
england
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
era
europe
european
evidence
historical
history
humanism
intellectual
libraries
medieval
memory
middle ages
past
post
reading
reformation
reformer
remembering
remembrance
research
robert cotton
scholarly
time period
tradition
uk
united kingdom
western
written
Product details
- ISBN 9780226781709
- Weight: 539g
- Dimensions: 16 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 01 May 2011
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
In Jennifer Summit's account, libraries are more than inert storehouses of written tradition; they are volatile spaces that actively shape the meanings and uses of books, reading, and the past. Considering the two-hundred-year period between 1431, which saw the foundation of Duke Humfrey's famous library, and 1631, when the great antiquarian Sir Robert Cotton died, "Memory's Library" revises the history of the modern library by focusing on its origins in medieval and early modern England. Summit argues that the medieval sources that survive in English collections are the product of a Reformation and post-Reformation struggle to redefine the past by redefining the cultural place, function, and identity of libraries. By establishing the intellectual dynamism of English libraries during this crucial period of their development, "Memory's Library" demonstrates how much current discussions about the future of libraries can gain by reexamining their past.
Jennifer Summit is professor of English at Stanford University. She is the author of Lost Property: The Woman Writer and English Literary History, published by the University of Chicago Press.
