Description
Book SynopsisLocates the origins of modern democratic discourse in the culture of printing in early modern England. This work of historical sociology explores the unanticipated liberating effects of printing and printed communication in transforming the world of political secrecy into a culture of open discourse and eventually a politics of public opinion.
Trade Review"In this thoughtful and innovative work of historical sociology, Zaret challenges the prevailing view that democratic discourse and the politics of public opinion emerged from the culture of the Enlightenment."--Choice "Zaret has provocative and challenging things to say, and even those who disagree with his conclusion will find this a powerful work... This book itself is full of telling evidential details, cited without fanfare, that cumulatively show how an unusually perceptive author can use such nuances to fine-tune our larger stories about the past. Both sociologists and historians can read it with immense profit."--Adrian Johns, American Historical Review "Origins of Democratic Culture is an invigorating, well-researched and powerfully argued book."--Andrew Hadfield, Times Literary Supplement "David Zaret's Origins of Democratic Culture is an elegant, lucid, impeccably researched monograph that presents a cogent analysis of how a vibrant public sphere contributes to democratic practice... [It] advances our understanding of how political cultures operate. It marks Zaret as one of the major cultural historical sociologists in contemporary American sociology and will be 'must' reading for scholars of democracy and culture from all social science disciplines as well as for graduate seminars in comparative historical social science."--Mabel Berezin, Social Forces "This is a compelling interdisciplinary study that synthesizes recent historical scholarship on early modern politics and news culture with detailed archival research, and places its findings in a broad sociological perspective that offers a powerful corrective to prevailing conceptions of the origins, nature, and social composition of the early modern public sphere."--Alastair Bellany, Journal of Interdisciplinary History "Historically well informed, lucidly and persuasively written, and making a skillful synthesis of the general and the particular, Zaret's book deserves to be widely read by historians and sociologists alike."--Peter Burke, American Journal of Sociology "A major contribution the the substantive debate about the origins of the public sphere and democratic politics."--Bryan S. Turner, Contemporary Sociology "[An] engaging and persuasive book... Zaret argues that it was the explosion of printing in England during the 1640s which precipitated the crucial turning point in the origins of democratic culture."--Adam Fox, European Review of History
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi Abbreviations xiii Chapter One Introduction 3 Chapter Two Theory and History 18 Theories of the Early Public Sphere 21 Historical Revisionism 35 The Paradox of Innovation 39 Chapter Three Secrecy and Privilege 44 Principle 50 Contradictions between Secrecy Norms and Political Practice 61 Chapter Four Traditional Communicative Practice 68 Center to Periphery 69 Periphery to Center 75 Grievances and Petitions 81 Chapter Five News 100 Oral News: Rumors and Ballads 109 Scribal News 110 Chapter Six Printing and the Culture of Print 133 Presses and Printers 134 Legal and Political Issues 140 Authors and Sellers 145 Popular Literacy and Reading 150 Illicit Books 159 Appeals to Public Opinion in Religion to 1640 165 Chapter Seven Printing and Politics in the 1640s 174 Imposition of Dialogic Order on Conflict 176 Printed News 184 Printed Political Texts 197 Invoking Public Opinion 209 Chapter Eight Petitions 217 Petitions as Political Propaganda 221 Petitions as Indicators of Opinion in the Periphery 231 Petitions and Printing 240 The Paradox of Innovation in Petitioning 254 The Authority of Opinion 257 Toward Liberal Democracy 262 Chapter Nine Epilogue 266 Deism, Science, and Opinion 270 Contemporary Implications 275 Index 281
