A social history of knowledge II : from the Encyclopédie to Wikipedia / Peter Burke.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Burke, Peter, 1937-

Contributor:

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Knowledge, Sociology of--History.

Knowledge, Sociology of.

History.

Physical Description:

vii, 359 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Other Title:

Social history of knowledge 2

From the Encyclopédie to Wikipedia

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA : Polity, 2012.

Summary:

Peter Burke follows up his magisterial Social History of Knowledge, picking up where the first volume left off around 1750 at the publication of the French Encyclopédie and 'following the story through to Wikipedia. Like the previous volume, it offers a social history, (or a retrospective sociology of knowledge) in the sense that it focuses not on individuals but on groups, institutions, collective practices and' general trends.

The book-is divided into three parts. The first argues that activities which appear to be timeless - gathering knowledge, then analysing, disseminating and employing it - are in fact time-bound and take different forms in different periods and places. The second part tries to counter the tendency to write a triumphalist history of the 'growth' of knowledge by discussing losses of knowledge and the price of specialization. The third part offers geographical, sociological and chronological overviews, contrasting the experience of centres and peripheries and arguing that each of the main trends of the period professionalization, secularization, nationalization, democratization, etc., coexisted and interacted with its opposite.

As ever, Peter Burke presents a breathtaking range of scholarship in prose of exemplary clarity and accessibility. This highly anticipated second volume will be essential reading across the Humanities and social sciences. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part I Knowledge Practices 9

1 Gathering Knowledges 11

2 Analysing Knowledges 50

3 Disseminating Knowledges 85

4 Employing Knowledges 109

Part II The Price of Progress 137

5 Losing Knowledges 139

6 Dividing Knowledges 160

Part III A Social History in Three Dimensions 185

7 Geographies of Knowledge 187

8 Sociologies of Knowledge 218

9 Chronologies of Knowledge 247.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [300]-334) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

ISBN:

9780745650425

0745650422

9780745650432

0745650430

OCLC:

773420759