CCR 720: Finkelstein (2008) "History of the Book, Authorship..."

Finkelstein, David. (2008). “History of the Book, Authorship, Book Design, and Publishing.” In Charles Bazerman (Ed.) Handbook of Research on Writing: History, Society, School, Individual, Text (65-79). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

• Overview: In this chapter, Finkelstein gives a historical overview of the invention and progression of writing, printing, mass text production, authorship as a profession, text production and design as a profession, and the developments of publishing.
• Intro: Finkelstein begins by giving a rapid overview of the invention of writing, including where writing systems began and why as well as who was involved in writing. He explains the invention of writing as arising to share technology and transcribe religious texts. The earliest culture to develop writing (Mesopatamia, ~3400 BC) did it for sharing technology (irrigation techniques), while subsequent cultures (like Egyptian hieroglyphics) focused mostly on sacred and religious texts, aligning great authority and power behind writing and associating writing as requiring utmost thoughtful and careful attention: “What this meant in practice was a careful attention to the representation of words, a practice of transcription that believed inaccuracies would violate sacred tenets and have unforeseen dire consequences” (66). Thus the reading public consisted mostly of priests and scribes who worked to copy and distribute religious texts, but later (late 1100s) university members (still mostly priests) and the developing bourgeois class (lawyers, medics, government officials, etc. around 13^th C.), who influenced books for entertainment (literature like romance, translations, poetry).

· Gutenberg and Change: The first print press invented by Gutenberg ~1448 inspired mass production of texts, which resulted in democratization: literacy spread dramatically, there was a rediscovery of suppressed texts (suppressed by Monastic Age elitists) during the Renaissance period (17^th C), and an increased spread of a wider range of subject matter in texts.

· Exporting Print Communication Practices: Printing practices were exported overseas and mass printing continued to develop in places like the U.S., New Zealand, Austrailia, and Canada (1639-1800) serving “intellectual, economic, and political needs” (68). Original work begins to be published toward the end of the 19^th C.

· The Age of Steam: The Koenig steam press (1814) as well as the steam engine initiated corporate printing after and in part by the Industrial Revolution (late 18^th C. – early 19^th C.). Publishers began printing faster and cheaper (series, recycled texts, paperbacks), and sold their texts nationally and internationally. Authorship begins to become a profitable profession.

· Books and Authors: Authorship generally arose out the Renaissance period where classical texts were rediscovered and original works were produced, thus leading writers to seek publication for fortune and fame. Authors became marketable commodities and authentification became increasingly important as well: books were gauged for their worth depending on authors’ names, printing services, or sponsors. Patronage—where writers sought sponsors to fund writing and printing costs, sponsors which the text would ultimately be dedicated to—caused various political implications since patrons would often have to support sponsor’s political agendas and patrons’ content was often framed around sponsors’ social interests.

· Authors and Copyright: Outside of patronage, authors found financial success by creating interest in the public. The economic revolution of authorship and publication, according to Finkelstein, is attributable to copyright laws coming out of a legal battle for copyright between English and Scottish factions (Donaldson v. Becket, 1774). Numerous countries eventually adapted similar laws (1774-1835), though there are traces of copyright laws since the late 15^th C. To pay for production of texts, then, a number of practices were established such as readers paying in advance for published work, authors sharing costs and profits (half-profits system), authors being paid once for forfeiting full copyright, and (in the 19^th C.) use of royalty payments (authors get percentage of profit). In the 20^th C. and today we see the development of marketing and promotional strategies for publishing work (royalty systems still prevalent).

· Authors in an Industrial Age: The publishing profession (including authorship, printing, and literary professions) flourished as a result of legal rights and industrialization. Technological advancements—like mechanized Fourdinier papermaking machine (1801), steam driven rotary presses, trains, and boats, as well as telegraph cables and transmissions all participated in rapid advancements, production rates, and international circulation of text production.

· From the 20^th Century to the Future: During this time, we’ve seen a tendency for publishing houses to join into large transnational conglomerates. Finkelstein acknowledges the argument that combining “books, newspapers, TV, film, and music industries together....is part of the radical restructuring of social communications” (74).

· Media Globalization: Transnational trends for publishing and combining media production companies has arguably led to a cultural globalization and combined written and visual productions: “The linked characteristics of media and print conglomerate industries are certainly striking: Both involve hefty capital investment, a move to generate mass-market content through mass production techniques, and moves to increase multipurpose use of cultural assets and intellectual property—books into film scripts and the like” (75). Mergers between media conglomerates, like AOL (internet based) and Time Warner (TV, film and book based) shows an exploitation of texts and copyright across different forms of media. Copyright (or brand) practices have moved to protecting “intellectual property” for businesses and ideas as well, like copyrights for Disney characters.

· Book History and the Communication Circuit: There have been a few approaches to how we study books. Darton (1982) proposed that book historians analyze the “communication circuit” a text is constructed within: the complex relationships between author, publisher, printer, shipper, bookseller, and reader in order to analyze “the production of texts as a multifaceted enterprise encompassing social, economic, political, and intellectual conditions” (75-76). Adams and Barker (1993) charged Darton’s practice for ignoring the fact that texts are artifacts that have meaning for people and are effected by “intellectual influences; political, legal, and religious influences; commercial pressures; [and] social behavior and taste” (76). Price (2002) says the history of a book “is centrally about ourselves. It asks how past readers have made meaning (and therefore, by extension, how others have read differently than us); but it also asks where the conditions of possibility for our own reading came from” (qtd. 76).

· Conclusion: Finkelstein concludes by making four points: 1.) reproducibility of texts has worked to transfer and shape knowledge across the masses quickly, efficiently, and reliably; 2.) society has placed trust in printed texts (perhaps due to social and institutional filters of publishing practices); 3.) New and old versions of media, especially concerning a shift towards communicating through images and the practice of producing and accessing texts digitally will likely act as a significant merge of how we communicate and publish; and 4.) Regardless of recent technological advancements and the shift towards digitized communication, the history of books, authorship, and publishing helps us to understand how societies around the world. have developed socially, culturally, legally, religiously, economically, and politically.