"The modern world was not created by the civilization of Renaissance Italy, the advent of the printing press, or the marriage restrictions imposed by the medieval church. Rather, it was widespread reading that brought about most of the cognitive, psychological, and social changes that we recogn...

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Bibliographic Details

Main Author:	Williams, David, 1945- (Author)
Format:	Electronic eBook
Language:	English
Published:	Montreal ; Kingston ; London ; Chicago : McGill-Queen's University Press, 2022.
Series:	McGill-Queen's studies in the history of ideas ; 86.
Subjects:	Reading > History. Literacy > History. Books and reading > History. Humanism > History. Renaissance. Civilization, Modern. Livres et lecture > Histoire. Humanisme > Histoire. LITERARY CRITICISM / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Books and reading Civilization, Modern Humanism Literacy Reading Renaissance Electronic books. History
Online Access:	DE-862 DE-863
Summary:	"The modern world was not created by the civilization of Renaissance Italy, the advent of the printing press, or the marriage restrictions imposed by the medieval church. Rather, it was widespread reading that brought about most of the cognitive, psychological, and social changes that we recognize as peculiarly modern. David Williams combines book and communications history with readings of major works by Petrarch, Bruni, Valla, Reuchlin, Erasmus, Foxe and Milton to argue that expanding literacy in the Renaissance was the impetus for modern civilization, turning a culture of arid logic and religious ceremonialism into a world of individual readers who discovered a new form of communion in the act of reading. It was not the theologians Luther and Calvin who first taught readers to become what they read, but the biblical philologist Erasmus, who encountered the divine presence on every page of the gospels. From this sacramental form of reading came other modes of humanist reading, particularly in law, history, and classics, leading to the birth of the nation-state. As literacy rates rose, readers of all backgrounds gained and embodied the distinctly modern values of liberty, free speech, toleration, individualism, self-determination, and democratic institutions. Communion and community were linked, performed in novel ways through revolutionary forms of reading. In this conclusion to a quartet of books on media change, Williams makes a compelling case for readers and acts of reading as the true drivers of social, political, and cultural modernity--and for digital media as its looming nemesis."--
Physical Description:	1 online resource (xxii, 502 pages)
Bibliography:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:	0228015855 9780228015864 0228015863 9780228015857