From the early Sumerian clay tablet through to the emergence of the electronic text, this Blackwell Companion provides a continuous and coherent account of the history of books. The volumes quo;s expert contributors draw on the latest research in order to offer a cogent, transcontinental narrative. Many of them make use of illustrative examples and case studies of well-known texts, helping to convey to readers a sense of excitement and a feel for how fast this field is developing. The Companion is organized around four distinct ways of approaching the history of books. Firstly, it introduces the variety of methods used by book historians and allied specialists to investigate their subject, from the long established discipline of bibliography to newer IT-based approaches. Next, it provides a broad chronological survey of the forms and content of texts. The third section situates the book in the context of text culture as a whole; while the final section addresses broader issues such as the nature of authorship and the future of the book.List of Illustrations Part I Methods and Approaches 1 Why Bibliography Matters: T. H. Howard-Hill 2 What is Textual Scholarship?: David Greetham 3 The Uses of Quantification: Alexis Weedon 4 Readers: Books and Biography: Stephen Colclough Part II The History of the Material Text IIA The World before the Codex: 5 The Clay Tablet Book in Sumer, Assyria, and Babylonia: Eleanor Robson 6 The Papyrus Roll in Egypt, Greece, and Rome: Cornelia Roemer IIB The Book beyond the West 7 China: J. S. Edgren 8 Japan, Korea, and Vietnam: Peter Kornicki 9 South Asia: Graham Shaw 10 Latin America: Hortensia Calvo 11 The Hebraic Book: Emile G. L. Schrijver 12 The Islamic Book: Michael Albin IIC The Codex in the West 400-2000 13 The Triumph of the Codex: The Manuscript Book before 1100: Michelle Brown 14 Parchment and Paper: Manuscript Culture 1100-1500: M. T. Clanchy 15 The Gutenberg Revolutions: Lotte Hellinga 16 The Book Trade Comes of Age: The Sixteenth Century: David J. Shaw 17 The British Book Market 1600-1800: John Feather 18 Print and Public in Europe 1600-1800: Rietje van Vliet 19 North America and Transatlantic Book Culture to 1800: Russell L. Martin III 20 The Industrialization of the Book 1800-1970: Rob Banham 21 From Few and Expensive to Many and Cheap: The British Book Market 1800-1890: Simon Eliot Jean-Yves Mollier and 22 A Continent of Texts: Europe 1800-1890: Marie-Françoise Cachin 23 Building a National Literature: The United States 1800-1890: Robert A. Gross 24 The Globalization of the Book 1800-1970: David Finkelstein 25 Modernity and Print I: Britain 1890-1970: Jonathan Rose 26 Modernity and Print II: Europe 1890-1970: Adriaan van der Weel 27 Modernity and Print III: The United States 1890-1970: Beth Luey 28 Books and Bits: Texts and Technology 1970-2000: Paul Luna 29 The Global Market 1970-2000: Producers: Eva Hemmungs Wirtén 30 The Global Market 1970-2000: Consumers: Claire Squires Part III Beyond the Codex 31 Periodicals and Periodicity: James Wald 32 The Importance of Ephemera: Martin Andrews 33 The New Textual Technologies: Charles Chadwyck-Healey Part IV Issues Patricia 34 New Histories of Literacy: Crain 35 Some Non-textual Uses of Books: Rowan Watson 36 The Book as Art: Megan L. Benton 37 Obscenity, Censorship, and Modernity: Deana Heath 38 Copyright and the Creation of Literary Property: John Feather 39 Libraries and the Invention of Information: Wayne A. Wiegand Coda 40 Does the Book Have a Future?: Angus Phillips Index