19th century
A01=Aileen Fyfe
Author_Aileen Fyfe
book selling
books
booksellers
british
business systems
Category=KNTP1
communication
competition
distribution
eq_bestseller
eq_business-finance-law
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
general public
glenormistan
great britain
historical
history
industrial technologies
industrialization
knowledge
machinery
market
mass production
periodicals
politician
politics
popular education
print
printing
publications
publishers
publishing firm
scotland
scottish
steam power
transportation
william chambers
Product details
- ISBN 9780226276519
- Weight: 595g
- Dimensions: 16 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 28 Feb 2012
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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With the overwhelming amount of new information that bombards us each day, it is perhaps difficult to imagine a time when the widespread availability of the printed word was a novelty. In early nineteenth-century Britain, print was not novel - Gutenberg's printing press had been around for nearly four centuries - but printed matter was still a rare and relatively expensive luxury. All this changed, however, as publishers began employing new technologies to astounding effect, producing cheap instructive texts and revolutionizing how knowledge was disseminated to the masses. In "Steam-Powered Knowledge", Aileen Fyfe explores the activities of William Chambers and the W. & R. Chambers publishing firm during its formative years, documenting for the first time how new technologies - not just in communication, but also in transportation - were integrated into existing business systems.
Fyfe follows Chambers' journey from small-time bookseller and self-trained hand-press printer to wealthy and successful publisher of popular educational books on both sides of the Atlantic, demonstrating along the way the profound effects of his and his fellow publishers' willingness, or unwillingness, to incorporate these innovations into their businesses.
Aileen Fyfe is a lecturer in modern British history at the University of St Andrews, UK. She is the author of Science and Salvation and coeditor of Science in the Marketplace, both published by the University of Chicago Press, and the editor of Science for Children.
