"You see books at school, at libraries, and at home. But who invented books? What materials are used to make a book? How do books make it onto shelves around the world? These questions and many more will be answered in this book about books"--

Since the rise of Napster and other file-sharing services in its wake, most of us have assumed that intellectual piracy is a product of the digital age and that it threatens creative expression as never before. The Motion Picture Association of America, for instance, claimed that in 2005 the film industry lost $2.3 billion in revenue to piracy online. But here Adrian Johns shows that piracy has a much longer and more vital history than we have realized-one...

Presents the life of the printer and explains how his movable type printing press changed the world.

A history of the modern printing industry, including how paper and ink are made, looking particularly at the printing press invented by Gutenberg around 1450 but also at its precursors.

In 14 original essays, The Oxford Illustrated History of the Book reveals the history of books in all their various forms, from the ancient world to the digital present. Leading international scholars offer an original and richly illustrated narrative that is global in scope. The history of the book is the history of millions of written, printed, and illustrated texts, their manufacture, distribution, and reception. Here are different types of production,...

Includes glossary and index.