The Information Revolution in Early Modern Europe by Paul M. Dover

Abstract

We have become accustomed to the idea that we live in the “information age,” the result of an “information revolution.” Nonetheless, some have argued that every society and age has been centered around information. Dover questions both these standpoints by placing the “information revolution” in Early Modern Europe. Drawing from his admirable research about diplomacy in the Early Modern Era, he examines Europe, not simply for the purpose of comparison but rather to explore the developing interdependence of European countries. Aided by an impressive array of primary sources, Dover traces the development of Europe as a social, political, and fundamentally informational network. The book also uses numerous secondary sources in multiple languages to reveal another network, historical scholarship, which has, in recent years, like his subject, developed around information. Patterning history and combining scholarship, the book makes “information” a critical tool for understanding the Early Modern Era. Rather than fighting against accounts of the present as the information era, Dover suggests that the current age began in the Early Modern Period. He concludes that today’s transitions, particularly the decline of paper and print and the rise of orality, may be marking the end of that long “age” and the return to something analogous to the pre-paper medieval world. Hence, Dover suggests, understanding the past will help us to understand the present better, in the process reminding us of the often-overlooked etymology of revolution. In mapping these revolutions, Dover avoids simple notions of determinism. He consults Eisenstein’s Printing Press as an Agent of Change but acknowledges criticism of the determinism that she acquired from Marshall McLuhan. Although Dover portrays technology as a central factor, he insists that technology not only shaped but was also shaped by its social context, thereby revealing the recursive aspects of our need for information. Tools that people developed to mine, order, and store information also expanded, often dramatically, the informational