Two distinguished historians examine the impact of the world's most influential information technology

The emergence of the book was not merely an event of world historical importance, but the dawn of modernity. In this much praised work, Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin mesh together economic and technological history, sociology and anthropology, with the study of consciousness itself to root the development of printing in the changing social relations and ideological struggles of Western Europe. Now that the printed page may become a thing of the past, The Coming of the Book is more pertinent than ever.

"It is one of the most exciting scholarly books ever written on printing ... This book is serious work-marvelously rich and stimulating." - Sunday Times

"It ranks easily among the most consequential works of recent French scholarship." - Times Literary Supplement