A Social History of Knowledge: From Gutenberg to Diderot Hardcover -
by Peter Burke
From the publisher
In this work Peter Burke adopts a socio-cultural approach to examine the changes in the organization of knowledge in Europe, from the invention of printing, to the publication of the French Encyclopaedie. The book opens with an assessment of different sociologies of knowledge from Mannheim to Foucault and beyond, and goes on to discuss intellectuals as a social group and the social institutions (especially universities and academies) which encouraged or discouraged intellectual innovation. Then, in a series of separate chapters, Burke explores the geography, anthropology, politics and economics of knowledge, focusing on the role of cities, academies, states and markets in the process of gathering, classifying, spreading and sometimes concealing information. The final chapters deal with knowledge from the point of view of the individual reader, listener, viewer or consumer, including the problem of the reliability of knowledge discussed so vigorously in the 17th century. One of the most original features of this book is its discussion of knowledges in the plural.
Details
- Title A Social History of Knowledge: From Gutenberg to Diderot
- Author Peter Burke
- Binding Hardcover
- Publisher Polity Press
- ISBN 9780745624846
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