Paul M. Dover. The Information Revolution in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. 342p. Paperback, $29.99 (ISBN: 978-1316602034).

Abstract

Millions of documents and digital objects are searchable in online discovery tools and databases. It is no wonder that a common concern of researchers today—whether first-year undergraduates or seasoned professors—is information overload. Paul M. Dover, however, suggests that struggles searching for and keeping track of information are nothing new. In The Information Revolution in Early Modern Europe, Dover argues that early modern Europeans placed greater emphasis on information management in the face of increasing amounts of data, which were piling up in mounds of paper in both bureaucratic and personal settings. Instead of viewing the post-Gutenberg period as an “age of print,” Dover says that we should see it as an “age of paper” (5). He questions the binary between manuscript and print cultures and contends that paper was the driving motor of a new information revolution.