Howard, Nicole Christine (Author)
Johns Hopkins University Press
Physical Details: 232
Language: English
While there is no denying the importance of the printing press to the scientific and medical advances of the early modern era, a closer look at authorial attitudes toward this technology refutes simplistic interpretations of how print was viewed at the time. Rather than embracing the press, scientific authors often disliked and distrusted it. In many cases, they sought to avoid putting their work into print altogether. In Loath to Print, Nicole Howard takes a fresh look at early modern printing technology from the perspective of the natural philosophers and physicians who relied on it to share ideas. She offers a new perspective on scientific publishing in the early modern period, one that turns the celebration of print on its head. Exploring both these scholars' attitudes and their strategies for navigating the publishing world, Howard argues that scientists had many concerns, including the potential for errors to be introduced into their works by printers, the prospect of having their work pirated, and most worrisome, the likelihood that their works would be misunderstood by an audience ill-prepared to negotiate the complexities of the ideas, particularly those that were mathematical or philosophical. Revealing how these concerns led authors in the sciences to develop strategies for controlling, circumventing, or altogether avoiding the broad readership that print afforded, Loath to Print explains how quickly a gap opened between those with scientific knowledge and a lay public―and how such a gap persists today. Scholars of the early modern period and the history of the book, as well as those interested in communication and technology studies, will find this an accessible and engaging look at the complexities of sharing scientific ideas in this rich period.
...MoreReview Sergio H. Orozco-Echeverri (2023) Review of "Loath to Print: The Reluctant Scientific Author, 1500–1750". Renaissance Quarterly (pp. 1090-1092).
Review Rienk Vermij (2023) Review of "Loath to Print: The Reluctant Scientific Author, 1500–1750". Technology and Culture (pp. 258-259).
Similar Citations
Book
Hans Bots;
(2018)
De Republiek der Letteren: De Europese intellectuele wereld 1500-1760
Article
Sharon, Aviv J.;
Baram-Tsabari, Ayelet;
(2014)
Measuring Mumbo Jumbo: A Preliminary Quantification of the Use of Jargon in Science Communication
Chapter
Robin Rider;
(1999)
The scientific book as a cultural and bibliographical object
Article
Damien P. Williams;
(2024)
Scholars are Failing the GPT Review Process
Article
Claire Gantet;
(2018)
Leibniz, les périodiques et l’espace savant
Book
Michelson, Emily;
(2013)
The Pulpit and the Press in Reformation Italy
Article
M. A. Taylor;
(2021)
The unusual printing and publishing arrangements of Hugh Miller (1802–1856)
Article
Stouraiti, Anastasia;
(2013)
Talk, Script and Print: The Making of Island Books in Early Modern Venice
Book
Bret, Patrice;
Chatzis, Konstantinos;
Hilaire-Pérez, Liliane;
(2008)
La presse et les périodiques techniques en Europe, 1750--1950
Article
Jarvis, Charles E.;
(2021)
An annotated bibliography of the printed works of James Petiver (c.1663–1718)
Article
Hosington, Brenda M.;
(2015)
Translation and Print Culture in Early Modern Europe
Article
Marco van Egmond;
(2016)
Mapping Early Utrecht Printers and Publishers: Experiences with Building a Geographical Interface
Book
Joseph E. Harmon;
Alan G. Gross;
(2023)
The Many Voices of Modern Physics: Written Communication Practices of Key Discoveries
Book
Gordin, Michael D.;
(2015)
Scientific Babel: How Science Was Done before and after Global English
Article
Wittkower, D. E.;
Selinger, Evan;
Rush, Lucinda;
(2013)
Public Philosophy of Technology: Motivations, Barriers, and Reforms
Thesis
Christopher Alexander Reed;
(1996)
Gutenberg in Shanghai: Mechanized printing, modern publishing, and their effects on the city, 1876-1937
Book
Rachael Scarborough King;
(2019)
After Print: Eighteenth-Century Manuscript Cultures
Article
Peter J. Bowler;
(2022)
Natural history and the Raj: Popular wildlife literature for readers in Britain and the British Empire in India (1858–1947)
Book
Kevin Lambert;
(2021)
Symbols and Things: Material Mathematics in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
Article
Ilizarov, S. S.;
(2010)
G. F. Miller and the Development of Academic Writing in Russia
Be the first to comment!