Peter Burke follows up his magisterial "Social History of
Knowledge," picking up where the first volume left off around 1750
at the publication of the French Encyclopedie and following the
story through to Wikipedia. Like the previous volume, it offers a
social history (or a retrospective sociology of knowledge) in the
sense that it focuses not on individuals but on groups,
institutions, collective practices and general trends.
The book is divided into 3 parts. The first argues that
activities which appear to be timeless - gathering knowledge,
analysing, disseminating and employing it - are in fact time-bound
and take different forms in different periods and places. The
second part tries to counter the tendency to write a triumphalist
history of the 'growth' of knowledge by discussing losses of
knowledge and the price of specialization. The third part offers
geographical, sociological and chronological overviews, contrasting
the experience of centres and peripheries and arguing that each of
the main trends of the period - professionalization,
secularization, nationalization, democratization, etc, coexisted
and interacted with its opposite.
As ever, Peter Burke presents a breath-taking range of
scholarship in prose of exemplary clarity and accessibility. This
highly anticipated second volume will be essential reading across
the humanities and social sciences.
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