Conflict and Enlightenment: Print and Political Culture in Europe, 1635–1795 PDF
Preview Conflict and Enlightenment: Print and Political Culture in Europe, 1635–1795
Conflict and Enlightenment Newapproachestothehistoryofprinthaveallowedhistoriansofearly modern Europe to re-evaluate major shifts in religious, intellectual, cultural and political life across the region. Drawing on precise and detailed study of the contexts of different types of print, including books,pamphlets,newspapersandflysheets,combinedwithquantita- tive analysis and a study of texts as material objects, Thomas Munck offers a transformed picture of early modern political culture, and through analysis of new styles and genres of writing he offers a fresh perspectiveontheintendedreadership.ConflictandEnlightenmentusesa resolutelycomparativeapproachtore-examinewhatwasbeingdissemi- nated in print, and how. By mapping the transmission of texts across cultural and linguistic divides, Munck reveals how far new forms of political discourse varied depending on the particular perspectives of authors, readers and regulatory authorities, as well as on the cultural adaptabilityoftranslatorsandsponsors. ThomasMunckisProfessorofEarlyModernEuropeanHistoryatthe University of Glasgow where his research focuses on comparative Europeansocial,culturalandpoliticalhistory.Acurrentmemberofa research group on cultural translation based in Germany, he is the recipient of research grants from the Carnegie Trust and the British Academy,andtheauthorofSeventeenth-CenturyEurope:State,Conflict andtheSocialOrderinEurope,1598–1700(2005). fl Con ict and Enlightenment PrintandPoliticalCultureinEurope,1635–1795 Thomas Munck UniversityofGlasgow UniversityPrintingHouse,CambridgeCB28BS,UnitedKingdom OneLibertyPlaza,20thFloor,NewYork,NY10006,USA 477WilliamstownRoad,PortMelbourne,VIC3207,Australia 314–321,3rdFloor,Plot3,SplendorForum,JasolaDistrictCentre, NewDelhi–110025,India 79AnsonRoad,#06–04/06,Singapore079906 CambridgeUniversityPressispartoftheUniversityofCambridge. ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof education,learning,andresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence. www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9780521878074 DOI:10.1017/9781139021289 ©ThomasMunck2019 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublished2019 PrintedintheUnitedKingdombyTJInternationalLtd.Padstow,Cornwall AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Names:Munck,Thomas,author. Title:Conflictandenlightenment:printandpoliticalcultureinEurope, 1635–1795/ThomasMunck,UniversityofGlasgow. Description:Cambridge,UnitedKingdom;NewYork:CambridgeUniversity Press,2019.|Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. Identifiers:LCCN2019019463|ISBN9780521878074(hbk.)| ISBN9780521701808(pbk.) Subjects:LCSH:Bookindustriesandtrade–Politicalaspects–Europe– History–17thcentury.|Bookindustriesandtrade–Politicalaspects– Europe – History – 18th century. | Printing – Influence. | Enlightenment – Europe.|Europe–Intellectuallife–17thcentury.|Europe–Intellectual life–18thcentury. Classification:LCCZ124.M942019|DDC338.4/76862094–dc23 LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2019019463 ISBN978-0-521-87807-4Hardback ISBN978-0-521-70180-8Paperback CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyof URLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain, accurateorappropriate. Contents ListofFigures pagevii Acknowledgements viii Introduction 1 1 Print,Production,AuthorsandReaders 25 QuantifyingPrintOutputfromtheReformationto1800 30 PrintedNewslettersandVisualImagery 41 NewspapersandPeriodicalsasPoliticalTextsintheCenturyafter1660 47 Pamphlets 51 ThePrintingWorkshop:Production,Costs,SalesandWorkflow 55 Copyright,IntellectualPropertyandDissemination 59 AuthorsandIntendedReaders:Milton,HobbesandSpinoza 62 TheChangingDynamicsofPrintandDissemination 68 2 InstabilityandPoliticisation(1630–77) 71 PowerandPropagandaVisualisedintheThirtyYearsWar 73 PamphletsandPoliticsinEnglandinthe1640s 79 PrintduringtheCommonwealthandProtectorate 95 PrintinFranceduringtheFronde 107 AccesstoPolitics:theNetherlands 115 PoliticalVolatilityandPrintintheMid-seventeenthCentury 123 3 SubversivePrintintheEarlyEnlightenment 128 BiblicalInterpretationandthePowerofIntoleranceinCivilSociety 133 ImpactofForbiddenReading 146 CivilSocietyinFactandFictionintheAgeofLocke,Toland,Fénelonand Montesquieu 153 Newspapers,JournalsandPeriodicalsaroundtheTurnoftheCentury 167 PublicOpinionandthePublicSphere1685–1721 174 4 TranslationandTransmissionacrossCulturalBorders 180 DictionariesandEncyclopedias 182 TheoriesofLanguageandtheTowerofBabel 191 BooksandReputationsacrossFrontiers:CaseStudies 199 TranslatingandRewritingBeccaria’sOnCrimesandPunishments 204 ReviewJournalsandtheImaginedRepublicofReaders 208 v vi Contents RevolutionandNeology 217 Speaking,Writing,Translating:TextsandConcepts 220 5 HighEnlightenment,PoliticalTextsandReform1748–89 225 Censorship,LibelandIllegalBooks 231 NewsandPoliticalPeriodicals 246 PatrioticSocieties,‘Improvement’andtheUseofData 254 PamphleteeringandPoliticalLobbying 264 Government-sponsoredPrint 273 PublicOpinionandPoliticalDiscourseintheEuropeanContext 279 6 Revolution:DemocracyandLoyalisminPrint1789–95 284 WomeninPoliticsandPrint 288 Democratisingthe‘PoliticalNation’:ParisRadicals 295 FurtherResponsesinPrint 308 MakingandShapingtheNews 315 LanguageandtheCreationof‘National’Understanding 324 PublishingandRevolutionaryPolitics 331 Conclusions 336 SelectBibliography 344 Index 364 Figures 1 Productionanddisseminationofprint page2 vii Acknowledgements Printed texts are never merely what they appear to be. In the early modernperiod,theversatilityofprintingasameansofcommunication opened up new possibilities, but as with the internet and social media today,authorship,intendedaudience,implicitcontentandpossibilities ofdisseminationallrequirecarefulanalysisbeforewecanbereasonably sure we understand what is being communicated and why. Movable- typeprinting,whenitwasfirstdevelopedforcommercialpurposesinthe fifteenth century, may have been regarded primarily as a means of making religious texts more widely accessible, but these texts (and their translation) soon generated religious disagreement and contro- versy, and, by extension, a more critical approach to textual transmis- sion in other fields of knowledge and imagination. Questions of a political nature, including good governance and the purpose of civil society, were unavoidable in the Reformation debates themselves, but itisoneofthecoreargumentsofthisbookthatpoliticalcontroversyin print became much more sustained and belligerent from the 1630s onwards, creating imaginative new formats and styles of writing intendedtoreachawiderreadership. Traditionalresearchagendasinthehistoryofideas,andinintellectual history, have greatly enhanced our understanding of the early modern period.Butintellectualattributionisrarelyanexactscience,leastofallin politics and the study of civil society, where less readily definable influ- ences, symbolism and even public opinion may be equally significant. Seventeenth-andeighteenth-centurywriters,atleastwhenwritingfora scholarlyaudience,likedtocitesourcesfromantiquity,buttheytendedto be less specific when writing for a wider audience and more selective in citingorattackingtheirowncontemporaries.Wemayendupspeculating whether Hobbes influenced Rousseau’s concept of the general will, or whetherLessingwasinanyrealsenseaSpinozist,butweareunlikelyto findconclusiveevidenceifwerestrictourstudysolelytoanarrowselec- tionofrecognisedmajortextsintheintellectualhistoryoftheseventeenth centuryandtheEnlightenment. viii
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