The Specter of the Archive : Political Practice and the Information State in Early Modern Britain.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Popper, Nicholas.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Tower of London Record Office.

Great Britain. State Paper Office.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (356 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2024.

Summary:

An exploration of the proliferation of paper in early modern Britain and its far-reaching effects on politics and society. We are used to thinking of ourselves as living in a time when more information is more available than ever before. In The Specter of the Archive, Nicholas Popper shows that earlier eras had to grapple with the same problem-how to deal with too much information at their fingertips. He reveals that early modern Britain was a society newly drowning in paper, a light and durable technology whose spread allowed statesmen to record drafts, memoranda, and other ephemera that might otherwise have been lost, and also made it possible for ordinary people to collect political texts. As original paperwork and copies alike flooded the government, information management became the core of politics. Focusing on two of the primary political archives of early modern England, the Tower of London Record Office and the State Paper Office, Popper traces the circulation of their materials through the government and the broader public sphere. In this early media-saturated society, we find the origins of many issues we face today: Who shapes the archive? Can we trust the pictures of the past and the present that it shows us? And, in a more politically urgent vein: Does a huge volume of widely available information (not all of it accurate) risk contributing to polarization and extremism?

Contents:

Intro

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1: Archivization

2: Pump and Circulation

3: Institutions Reimagined

4: Shared Practice and Rival Visions of the State

5: Information Warfare

6: Centralization and Orchestration

Epilogue: The World of the Archive

List of Abbreviations

List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Collections Cited

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

0-226-82596-5

OCLC:

1407312425