Reading Ireland: Print, reading and social change in early modern Ireland (Politics, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain) - Softcover

Gillespie, Raymond

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0719087821 ISBN 13: 9780719087820

Publisher: Manchester University Press, 2012

Synopsis

This fascinating and innovative study explores the lives of people living in early modern Ireland through the books and printed ephemera which they bought, borrowed or stole from others. While the importance of books and printing in influencing the outlook of early modern people is well known, recent years have seen significant changes in our understanding of how writing and print shaped lives, and was in turn shaped by those who appropriated the written word.

The author finds that a set of revolutions took place which transformed the lives of the Irish in unexpected ways, and that the rise of writing and the spread of print were central to an understanding of those changes which have previously only been understood to have been the result of conquest and colonisation.

This is a book which will be read not only by those interested in the Irish past but by all those who are concerned with the impact of communications media on social change.

About this title

About the Author

Raymond Gillespie is Professor of Modern History at National University of Ireland, Maynooth

From the Back Cover

This fascinating and innovative study explores the lives of people living in early modern Ireland through the books and printed ephemera which they bought, borrowed or stole from others. While the importance of books and printing in influencing the outlook of early modern people is well known, recent years have seen significant changes in our understanding of how writing and print shaped lives, and was in turn shaped by those who appropriated the written word.

This book draws on this literature to shed light on the changes that took place in this unusual European society. The author finds that there, almost uniquely in Europe, a set of revolutions took place which transformed the lives of the Irish in unexpected ways, and that the rise of writing and the spread of print were central to an understanding of those changes which have previously only been understood to have been the result of conquest and colonisation.

This is a book which will be read not only by those interested in the Irish past but by all those who are concerned with the impact of communications media on social change.

From the Inside Flap

This fascinating and innovative study explores the lives of people living in early modern Ireland through the books and printed ephemera which they bought, borrowed or stole from others. While the importance of books and printing in influencing the outlook of early modern people is well known, recent years have seen significant changes in our understanding of how writing and print shaped lives, and was in turn shaped by those who appropriated the written word. This book draws on this literature to shed light on the changes that took place in this unusual European society. The author finds that there, almost uniquely in Europe, a set of revolutions took place which transformed the lives of the Irish in unexpected ways, and that the rise of writing and the spread of print were central to an understanding of those changes which have previously only been understood to have been the result of conquest and colonisation. This is a book which will be read not only by those interested in the Irish past but by all those who are concerned with the impact of communications media on social change.

Edition details

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0719087821
• ISBN 13: 9780719087820
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 232