The seeming omnipresence of computers and smartphones today has made manifest the human struggle with excessive amounts of information. That many consider this to be a defining trait of twenty-first-century society demonstrates the importance of dealing with the overload of information—and disinformation. As Paul Dover deftly demonstrates in this well-documented overview, difficulties related to the creation, storage, processing, distribution, and retrieval of massive amounts of information have roots going back to at least the fifteenth century. Following a paper trail, Dover leads us through the rapid expansion of information creation in numerous realms, including commerce, politics, social movements, scholarly discourse, and individual expression. Rather than a printing revolution, Dover points to the revolutionary impact of access to vast quantities of paper as a medium for the preservation and distribution of information.
While the author acknowledges the importance of print in the emergence of modern Europe, he focuses on the handwritten word in commercial communication, legal agreements, signs of political authority, scholarly correspondence, and other areas of human interaction. In describing the information practices of Philip II of Spain, for example, the author demonstrates the massive information collection efforts necessary for ruling a vast global empire through the creation of massive conduits for bringing current news and reports on paper to the royal court, chiefly in handwritten form. The sheer quantity of information gathered for review both empowered and hindered Philip’s governance of his realms. The acceptance of paper as a means of communication and information-sharing also meant that rulers like Philip II could express their authority through a written signature, rather than through personal appearances. In turn, the need to store, track, and retrieve such authoritative information led to the rise of modern archival practices.
Rather than focusing on printed books superseding the role of manuscript books, Dover points to ways in which print prompted the use of handwriting to share information, such as reader comments recorded in marginalia or through copying and distributing of texts. Dover still acknowledges printing as an “agent of change”; however, he emphasizes its broader role for collecting and distributing information through various means, such as “pamphlets, price lists, posters, advertisements, official forms and questionnaires, and ultimately journals and newspapers” (190).
In the natural sciences, the rapid increase in access to an abundance of information about the natural world meant that such information or facts could be gathered, collated, and analyzed. By transforming these isolated facts into data, the information revolution laid the groundwork for modern scientific methodologies, as well.
The prevalence of paper as the support for handwritten correspondence also proved foundational for the Respublica litterarum (republic of letters). Scholars across Europe regularly corresponded with each other through networks of learning and information-sharing in which letters served as a “bonding agent for scholarly friendships” (231). Over time, the demand for the latest news led to the development of the first serial or periodical publications.
Published as part of the New Approaches to European History textbook series, Dover’s monograph provides students and other scholars with wide-ranging examples of information management and mismanagement across the European cultural sphere. Taken individually, each chapter should prove useful to the teaching of historical and social developments as well as to the opening of new paths for research. Taken as a whole, his presentation offers a valuable summary of social and political change that addresses issues that go beyond the study of history and could find application in fields as varied as literary studies, philosophy, music, law, and information science.
Dover has succeeded in his goal of synthesizing the issues and current scholarly research into information science, while also making his own “original connections between the insights of others” (37). The expansive detail of this work and the extensive bibliography provide inquisitive researchers with suggestions and pathways to dive more deeply into the ocean of information in which we all swim. Pointing to the failure of early modern European society to manage large amounts of information, while simultaneously producing more, Dover aptly describes “a paradox familiar to those in the digital age” (281).
