The Invention of News
At a time when digital media is transforming the way news is delivered--and by whom-- Andrew Pettegree offers a reminder that newspapers too were once a revolutionary form of delivering information. In The Invention of News: How The World Came To Know About Itself, Pettegree looks at the changing definition, use, control, and distribution of the news from the medieval world to the age of revolution.
Building on his previous work in the ground-breaking The Book in the Renaissance,* Pettegree demonstrates how access to news became increasingly widespread, moving from private information networks run by medieval elites, through sixteenth century news pamphlets and news singers, to the newspapers of the eighteenth century. He looks at the development of postal systems, private couriers and the printing press. He considers the importance of the introduction of paper, the rise of coffee shops and the growth of a literate middle class. He discusses the roles played by news pamphlets in the Reformation and by newspapers in the American and French Revolutions.
Some of the most interesting sections of The Invention of News deal not with the development of new media, but the creation of new audiences. Technology often outpaced demand. Early printers, finding the traditional market for large books would not keep them solvent, created new markets for more ephemeral products. The first newspapers were bewildering to audiences accustomed to news pamphlets that told a single story from beginning to end. Perhaps, at some level, the medium is the message.
* Also well worth reading. Printing and the Protestant Reformation are more closely linked than you might think.
A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness for Readers.
Foyle’s War
History buff-ery can lead you to unexpected places. Recently it's led My Own True Love and I to our living room in front of the television, where we are totally absorbed in the BBC television series Foyle's War.* It's a police procedural set during World War II in the town of Hastings** on the southeast coast of England. The main character, detective chief inspector Christopher Foyle, would rather be in the armed services doing his part but his superiors feel he will do more good maintaining order along the coast.
The care with historical detail in the series is impressive,*** but the choice of period is more than set-dressing. The first season is overshadowed by the fear of German invasion. Subsequent seasons follow the course of the war. The murders in each episode derive directly from wartime conditions in Britain.
Even more interesting, from my perspective, is the representation of wartime British society. Patriots and heroes are shown side by side with Nazi sympathizers, rabid anti-Semites, draft dodgers, profiteers, hoarders, and soldiers irreparably damaged by their experience at the front. Innocent German refugees suffer at the hands of Britons whose patriotism has hardened into intolerance and hatred. Soldiers treat women badly. Men in important positions assume their value to the war effort exempts them from the rule of law. The government tries to cover up failures. The memory of World War I is never far away--something we often forget. This is not a simple picture of gallant little England standing alone against the Nazis. In many ways, it makes the instances of bravery, generosity and justice that appear in each episode more impressive.
We just finished season 5, which centers on the announcement of the German surrender. It will be interesting to see if the historical interest of the series holds as Foyle and his team move into the Cold War.
Don't touch that dial.
* We are not cutting edge television viewers. The first season of Foyle's War aired in 2002; season 9 is now in production.
** As in the Battle of Hastings--a subtle reminder that the threat of invasion from continental Europe is a pervasive element of British history, from the Romans onwards. No island is an island.
*** The only note that they don't quite hit is the issue of scarcity. Characters talk about coupons and rations. In one episode, members of the police force drool over food being held as evidence in a profiteering case. In another, the detective team enjoys the bounty available at an agricultural worker's boarding house. But you never get the feeling that people are never really warm, that clothing is patched and remade to make it last, or that they are hungry. If you want to get a good since of how pinched the average Briton was during the war, I suggest you read letters or popular fiction written during or just after the war. Off the top of my head, I would suggest Helene Hanff's 84 Charing Cross Road, Angell Thirkell's novels set during the war (pure fluff but very clear on the scarcity), or Agatha Christie.
How Paris Became Paris
Nineteenth century civic planner Baron Haussman is often given credit for transforming Paris into a modern city: a rebuilding massive project of bridges, wide boulevards and public spaces.
In How Paris Became Paris: The Invention of the Modern City, historian Joan DeJean (The Age of Comfort) argues that the real transformation occurred two centuries earlier, when Henri IV set out to rebuild a city that had been ravaged by Catholic and Protestant alike during the thirty-six years of the Wars of Religion. In 1597, wolves roamed freely in the French capital; by 1700, Paris was synonymous with culture, glamour and fashion.
Beginning with the building of the Pont Neuf (literally, the New Bridge), DeJean tells the story of a hundred years of royal vision, private funding, innovative real estate development and public planning. She also looks at how physical changes to the city created new behaviors, new institutions, and new problems. Many of the things that we think of as typically urban first appeared at this time: from public transportation and sidewalks to traffic jams and tourists. (Not the same thing as pilgrims.) Other changes are less familiar: new public spaces in which to promenade led to the new crime of cloak-snatching.
DeJean is also concerned with more than just seventeenth century urban renewal. Using a range of sources including contemporary guidebooks, plays and travel accounts, she explores how the city’s image was reinvented –creating a fantasy of Paris as what Claude Monet would later describe as “that dizzying place.”