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The Currency Of The Word: Communications, War And Revolution In The Formation Of The Nation-State, 1608-1655, Milton L. Mueller

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

An original and provocative analysis of the role of communications in the Thirty Years War and the English Revolution of 1640-1649. The years covered by the book saw the first printed new periodicals, the opening of the royal postal system to public correspondence, the monopolization of the posts by the state, and the exploitation of this communications infrastructure for surveillance and news purposes by the emerging territorial state. The book argues that all these developments were related aspects in the emergence of a currency of the word, a change in the temporal status of literate media. Printed commentary now flowed …