From the early Sumerian clay tablet through to the emergence of the electronic text, this Companion provides a continuous and coherent account of the history of the book. * Makes use of illustrative examples and case studies of well-known texts * Written by a group of expert contributors * Covers topical debates, such as the nature of censorship and the future of the book From the early Sumerian clay tablet through to the emergence of the electronic text, this Companion provides a continuous and coherent account of the history of the book. A team of expert contributors draws on the latest research in order to offer a cogent, transcontinental narrative. List of Illustrations. Notes on Contributors. Introduction (Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose). Part I Methods and Approaches. 1 Why Bibliography Matters (T. H. Howard Hill). 2 What is Textual Scholarship? (David Greetham). 3 The Uses of Quantifi cation (Alexis Weedon). 4 Readers: Books and Biography (Stephen Colclough). Part II The History of the Material Text. The World before the Codex. 5 The Clay Tablet Book in Sumer, Assyria, and Babylonia (Eleanor Robson). 6 The Papyrus Roll in Egypt, Greece, and Rome (Cornelia Roemer). The Book beyond the West. 7 China (J. S. Edgren). 8 Japan, Korea, and Vietnam (Peter Kornicki). 9 South Asia (Graham Shaw). 10 Latin America (Hortensia Calvo). 11 The Hebraic Book (Emile G. L. Schrijver). 12 The Islamic Book (Michael Albin). The Codex in the West 400 2000. 13 The Triumph of the Codex: The Manuscript Book before 1100 (Michelle P. Brown). 14 Parchment and Paper: Manuscript Culture 1100 1500 (M. T. Clanchy). 15 The Gutenberg Revolutions (Lotte Hellinga). 16 The Book Trade Comes of Age: The Sixteenth Century (David J. Shaw). 17 The British Book Market 1600 1800 (John Feather). 18 Print and Public in Europe 1600 1800 (Rietje van Vliet). 19 North America and Transatlantic Book Culture to 1800 (Russell L. Martin III). 20 The Industrialization of the Book 1800 1970 (Rob Banham). 21 From Few and Expensive to Many and Cheap: The British Book Market 1800 1890 (Simon Eliot). 22 A Continent of Texts: Europe 1800 1890 (Jean Yves Mollier and Marie Françoise Cachin). 23 Building a National Literature: The United States 1800 1890 (Robert A. Gross). 24 The Globalization of the Book 1800 1970 (David Finkelstein). 25 Modernity and Print I: Britain 1890 1970 (Jonathan Rose). 26 Modernity and Print II: Europe 1890 1970 (Adriaan van der Weel). 27 Modernity and Print III: The United States 1890 1970 (Beth Luey). 28 Books and Bits: Texts and Technology 1970 2000 (Paul Luna). 29 The Global Market 1970 2000: Producers (Eva Hemmungs Wirtén). 30 The Global Market 1970 2000: Consumers (Claire Squires). Part III Beyond the Book. 31 Periodicals and Periodicity (James Wald). 32 The Importance of Ephemera (Martin Andrews). 33 The New Textual Technologies (Charles Chadwyck Healey). Part IV Issues. 34 New Histories of Literacy (Patricia Crain). 35 Some Non textual Uses of Books (Rowan Watson). 36 The Book as Art (Megan L. Benton). 37 Obscenity, Censorship, and Modernity (Deana Heath). 38 Copyright and the Creation of Literary Property (John Feather). 39 Libraries and the Invention of Information (Wayne A. Wiegand). Coda. 40 Does the Book Have a Future? (Angus Phillips). Index.