The untold story of how the Dutch conquered the European book market and became the world's greatest bibliophiles—“an instant classic on Dutch book history” (BMGN - Low Countries Historical Review)
"[An] excellent contribution to book history."—Robert Darnton, New York Review of Books
The Dutch Golden Age has long been seen as the age of Rembrandt and Vermeer, whose paintings captured the public imagination and came to represent the marvel that was the Dutch Republic. Yet there is another, largely overlooked marvel in the Dutch world of the seventeenth century: books.
In this fascinating account, Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen show how the Dutch produced many more books than pictures and bought and owned more books per capita than any other part of Europe. Key innovations in marketing, book auctions, and newspaper advertising brought stability to a market where elsewhere publishers faced bankruptcy, and created a population uniquely well-informed and politically engaged. This book tells for the first time the remarkable story of the Dutch conquest of the European book world and shows the true extent to which these pious, prosperous, quarrelsome, and generous people were shaped by what they read.
- ISBN10 0300230079
- ISBN13 9780300230079
- Publish Date 26 February 2019
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 4 March 2021
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Yale University Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 496
- Language English