Book Reviews 299

The essays are much more subtle 
than this simple listing implies; but the 
“menu” does suggest the wealth of mat-
ter contained in the slender, easy to read, 
and handily indexed volume. More of a 
call to arms than a battle plan, the book 
nevertheless does give concrete examples 
and suggestions that will be helpful to a 
variety of readers. The reports of what 
other institutions are doing across the 
globe offer not just benchmarks against 
which to measure our institutions, but 
examples we may want to research and 
duplicate. The volume promises much 
and delivers impressively.—Harlan 
Greene, College of Charleston. 

The History of the Book in the West: A 
Library of Critical Essays. Farnham, 
U.K. & Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate Pub-
lishing Ltd., 2010. Vol. I: 400AD–1455, 
eds. Jane Roberts and Pamela Rob-
ertson, xxxii + 515p. $275.00 (ISBN 
9780754627739); Vol. II: 1455–1700, ed. 
Ian Gadd, xlii + 526p. $275.00 (ISBN 
9780754627715). LC2009-921962.

On May 4, 1515, Pope Leo X issued a pe-
culiar and remarkable decree, the Super 
impressione librorum (On the printing of 
books). In it, the Pope acknowledges a 
deep-seated sociocultural anxiety about 
the new technology of printing, stating 
that, although the reading of books can 
be a profitable pursuit for those seeking 
knowledge and the invention of printing 
has helped spread truth and learning 
more widely and inexpensively than ever 
before, the very same technology that en-
ables the dissemination of truth also facili-
tates the transmission and perpetuation of 
pernicious error that corrupts rather than 
edifies the reader. Despite any benefits it 
might offer, in the Pope’s opinion—which 
for all intents and purposes was supposed 
to reflect the official, ideal view for the 
entirety of the Christian West—the tech-
nology of printing was a new force that, 
in spite of its many benefits, needed to be 
assiduously monitored and controlled.

Pope Leo’s decree stands at a decisive 
moment in the history of the book. On 

the one hand, this declaration invokes 
a medieval past in which books and the 
knowledge they contained were created 
slowly by hand and disseminated among 
a smaller, more restricted body of readers. 
Although literacy rates and the spread of 
reading increased steadily throughout 
the Middle Ages, accelerating more and 
more up to the years immediately prior 
to the invention of printing, the medieval 
reading public was still comparatively 
small and both the prescription and pro-
scription of manuscript texts were easier 
to manage. At the same time, however, 
the decree also anticipates the explosion 
in literacy and the spread of reading that 
would occur throughout the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries in response 
to major social and religious movements 
and intellectual developments such as 
the Protestant Reformation, Renaissance 
humanism, New World colonization, the 
development of “modern” science, the 
emergence of more powerful centralized 
nation-states, and the growing popular-
ity of Europe’s various vernaculars as 
appropriate and authorized vehicles for 
printed expression. In the face of a rapidly 
growing and demanding reading public 
and the quick spread of the new technol-
ogy that could feed its ravenous appetite 
for text, both authorities and readers 
confronted an unfamiliar environment 
in which books—and the truth or errors 
they contained—were more widespread 
and less controllable than ever before.

The first two volumes of Ashgate’s new 
series, The History of the Book in the West, 
represent a necessary attempt to define 
the history of the book, a relatively new 
scholarly field, at a critical moment in 
its development. The thirty-five articles 
included in these volumes embody some-
thing akin to a “greatest hits” collection 
of relevant scholarship produced during 
the past forty years. Taken together, they 
provide readers with a firm foundation 
of authoritative research upon which 
to build future investigations into the 
complex history of books, their producers 
and readers, and their collective cultural 



300 College & Research Libraries May 2011

impact within their wider medieval and 
Renaissance historical, literary, political, 
religious, economic, artistic, and social 
contexts. Volume I covers manuscript 
book production between the years 400 
and 1455 CE, while Volume II considers 
the first two hundred and fifty years of 
printing, 1455–1700 CE. Although each 
of these respective periods encompasses 
a wide range of differences between, and 
developments in, the way books were 
manufactured, distributed, and con-
sumed, both volumes prioritize the same 
basic themes: the physical production of 
books; their “look” and textual layout 
and how these factors affected their use; 
the cultural impact of books—whether 
manuscript or printed—as material 
objects; economic processes of textual 
dissemination; and, finally, processes and 
practices of book consumption. 

Both volumes begin with an informa-
tive introductory essay outlining and 
contextualizing the main arguments 
discussed throughout their respective 
contents. These introductions stress the 
importance of considering a multiplicity 
of interdisciplinary approaches when 
investigating the history of the book, 
including paying careful attention to 
the “archaeology of the book”: in other 
words, the analysis of a book’s textual 
and physical layers to better understand 
the cultural context within which it was 
created and used. Each volume features 
essays on technical aspects of book pro-
duction, such as G.S. Ivy’s classic descrip-
tion of the codicology and production 
of manuscript books; T. Julian Brown’s 
broad but extremely useful overview of 
the evolution of handwriting from the 
late-antique to late-medieval periods; 
Graham Pollard’s explanation of the vari-
ous forms and techniques of bookbinding 
in the Middle Ages; and Blaise Agüera y 
Arcas’ and Nicolas Barker’s close stud-
ies of elements of Gutenberg’s DK-Type 
and the origin of the Aldine italic type. 
Although occasionally highly technical, 
these essays provide readers with an 
extremely important material under-

standing of the packaging of books in the 
Middle Ages and Renaissance that helps 
lay the groundwork for each volume’s 
later discussions of scribal processes, 
print production, textual dissemination, 
and reader consumption. 

The actual production and distribution 
of books, from accounts of scriptorium 
and printing house practices to descrip-
tions of particular manufacturers and 
booksellers and their commercial strate-
gies, form the basis for many of the arti-
cles included in each volume. In Volume I, 
the production, transmission, and selling 
of manuscript books during the Middle 
Ages features largely in many essays, 
including Christopher de Hamel’s discus-
sion of the circulation of glossed books of 
the Bible during the eleventh and twelfth 
centuries; Michael Gullick’s analysis of 
the rate of speed at which scribes could 
write their texts depending on a variety of 
factors such as the time of year, weather 
conditions, the quality of scriptorium 
facilities, and whether the scribe worked 
in a monastic or commercial setting; R.H. 
and M.A. Rouse’s account of the Univer-
sity of Paris’ domination of the Parisian 
book market during the thirteenth and 
fourteenth centuries and the experiences 
of the bookselling family of Guillaume de 
Sens within this environment; A.I. Doyle 
and M.B. Parkes’ discussion of the pro-
duction of manuscript copies of the works 
of Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower 
within London’s early fifteenth-century 
community of commercial scribes; and 
A.C. de la Mare’s exceptional overview 
of the professional life and associations 
of Italy’s fifteenth-century prince of book-
sellers, Vespasiano da Bisticci.

Moving forward into the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries, Volume II 
offers several compelling articles deal-
ing with the production and selling of 
printed books, such as Natalie Zemon 
Davis’ fascinating account of the activi-
ties and concerns of the Company of the 
Griffarins, a Lyonese trade union of 
journeymen compositors and pressmen; 
Clive Griffin’s revealing description of 



Book Reviews 301

the usefulness of Inquisitorial records as 
sources for insight into the itinerant lives 
of printers in sixteenth-century Spain; 
John L. Flood’s look at the rise and decline 
of the Frankfurt Fair and its impact on the 
commercial distribution of books across 
Europe during the Early Modern period; 
and Ian Maclean’s informative analysis 
of the market for scholarly books in 
northern Europe between 1570 and 1630. 
Also included is D.F. McKenzie’s article, 
“Printers of the Mind,” an absolutely 
essential study of the ways English print-
ing houses and the men who ran them 
actually worked during the hand-press 
period.In addition to discussions of the 
raw materials and processes of book pro-
duction and the selling and distribution of 
books, each volume also presents various 
articles dealing with the interrelationship 
between the diverse ways text is arranged 
on the page and how these different lay-
outs shaped styles of reading and inter-
pretation. Volume I, for instance, features 
Neil Ker’s account of how simple changes 
in scribal practice such as the transition 
from writing “above top line” to writing 
“below top line” on ruled manuscript 
pages during the early thirteenth century 
changed the way manuscript texts were 
packaged and presented. Related essays 
include M.B. Parkes’ discussion of how 
ordinatio—the organization of discrete 
portions of text into chapters, sections, 

and distinctions—and the practice of 
compilatio—the systematic compilation 
of diverse authoritative writings to form 
new, composite texts—not only trans-
formed the way readers interacted with 
their books but also influenced what 
they expected and demanded of them; 
David Ganz’s account of how careless 
scribal habits and a profusion of compet-
ing scripts in the late-eighth century led 
to the attempt during Charlemagne’s 
reign to promulgate laws facilitating the 
development and ensuring the use of a 
new scriptural form—Caroline minis-
cule—that would simplify and regularize 
scribal practice and production; Laura 
Light’s analysis of the emergence between 
1200 and 1230 of the “Paris Bible,” a new 
packaging of the biblical text that exerted 
a major influence on the way medieval 
people read and interpreted the Bible; 
Erik Kwakkel’s investigation into how the 
emergence of paper as an economically vi-
able writing support led to the emergence 
of new types of readers and reading in 
late-medieval Netherlands; and Charles 
F. Briggs’ wide-ranging and extremely 
valuable synthesis of international schol-
arship on medieval literacy, reading, and 
textual production. Rounding out the first 
volume is a short piece revealing details 
about the institutional use of books in the 
Middle Ages that should be particularly 
pleasing to librarians: a translation of 
Humbert of Romans’ description of the 
office and duties of librarians within the 
Domincan Order. Covering topics such 
as acquisitions, cataloguing, preservation 
and conservation, budgets, circulation, 
and interlibrary loans, this brief piece 
provides remarkable insight into practices 
of information science and management 
during the thirteenth century.

Volume II’s discussions of the impact 
of printing on textual production and 
consumption between 1455 and 1700 
begin with Elizabeth Eisenstein’s early 
conjectural article about printing’s broad 
impact on western society, followed im-
mediately by Anthony Grafton’s thought-
ful, incisive, and cogent review of her 

Index to advertisers
ACRL Publications 275
Amer. Meteorological Society 235
Annual Reviews 200
CHOICE Reviews Online 295
EBSCO 203
ISTE cover 4
Lincoln Inst. for Land Policy 306
Mathematical Assoc. of America 199
Modern Language Assoc. cover 3
Palgrave Macmillan 207
Philosophy Documentation Ctr. 208
RBMS 252
Society of Industrial and Applied 

Mathematics cover 2



302 College & Research Libraries May 2011

later book, The Printing Press as an Agent 
of Change. These two foundational essays 
set the stage for the volume’s other articles 
covering printing’s impact on the prac-
tices of textual production and reception, 
including Paul F. Grendler’s account of 
the Roman Inquisition’s repressive influ-
ence on the Venetian printing industry; 
Jean-Francois Gilmont’s discussion of 
the technical constraints that printing 
imposed on “the book” and how these 
restrictions affected the development 
of new reading practices in the early 
sixteenth century; Andrew Pettegree’s 
and Matthew Hall’s eye-opening reas-
sessment of the Protestant Reformation’s 
impact on the development and spread 
of printing; Roger Chartier ’s descrip-
tion of the competing, yet sometimes 
cooperative, cultures of reading/writing 
and orality during the Renaissance, and 
how these different methods of expres-
sion represented different modalities of 
performance necessitating different forms 
of reception; Paul Saenger’s fascinating 
look at how, in contrast to the presenta-
tion of manuscript text, typography and 
the layout of printed text fundamentally 
changed the way readers interacted with 
their books; and Lisa Jardine and An-
thony Grafton’s insightful analysis of how 
one particular sixteenth-century reader 
interpreted and used his copy of Livy’s 
history in his own social, literary, and 
political dealings. Volume II concludes 
with David Cressy’s article on the nonlit-
erary fetishistic use of books as symbolic 
objects of talismanic power; even for the 
illiterate, Cressy argues, books embodied 
knowledge and authority.

As informative and wide-ranging as 
the contents of these two volumes may 
be, in the end they can only be a repre-
sentative sample of the many different 
approaches to book history that scholars 
have undertaken over the past several de-
cades. The editors of each respective vol-
ume are to be praised for executing well a 
very difficult job. They have conveniently 
assembled in one place many of the most 
influential—and in some cases extremely 

hard to find—articles in the field, while at 
the same time limiting their selections to 
a manageable size and quantity.—Eric J. 
Johnson, The Ohio State University.

Elena S. Danielson. The Ethical Archivist. 
Chicago: Society of American Archi-
vists, 2010. 440p. alk. paper, $49.00 
(ISBN 978-1-931666-34-2). LC2010-
026680.

In 2003, the Society of American Archi-
vists published Ethics and the Archival 
Profession by Karen Benedict. The bulk 
of her very useful monograph consists 
of forty fictionalized case studies that 
represent challenging situations often 
encountered by archivists. Benedict is 
frequently cited in Elena Danielson’s new 
book; however, although Danielson also 
employs case studies, these two works 
are not interchangeable. Benedict’s case 
studies are aimed at providing groups 
such as classroom students and workshop 
attendees with vehicles for developing 
a deeper understanding of professional 
archivists’ ethical responsibilities through 
analytical group discussions. By contrast, 
Danielson offers extended consideration 
of the processes and principles that ar-
chivists should follow in making ethical 
judgments, using real-life cases to show 
how rarely such decisions are simple and 
straightforward. While Benedict suggests 
solutions to her case studies (being care-
ful to emphasize there may be alternative 
solutions as good or better), Danielson is 
more inclined to limit her prescriptions to 
steps that archivists might take to avoid 
the dilemmas under consideration or at 
least to minimize the difficulties that may 
ensue. The reader cannot help but come 
away from both books impressed with 
how deeply entangled is the archival 
profession in ethical dilemmas. 

After a lengthy introduction in which 
the author provides an historical and con-
ceptual background, Danielson examines 
in her first chapter the deontological and 
teleological approaches to ethical think-
ing, with emphasis on their shortcomings 
when not used together. Throughout