Book in a Historical and Social Context

• Definition of the book.
• Definition(s) of authorship and author's work.
• Definition of book publishing and book trade.
• Methods of textual transmission in Europe before the invention of movable type printing. Invention of printing in Asia.
• The social and cultural context of Gutenberg's invention and the break between manuscript culture and print culture.
• The emergence of the book communication circuit.
• The emergence of copyright as a regulator of the book trade and other information industries.
• Printing and the emergence of imagined communities. The birth of the information industry. The development of book markets in Europe and the USA.
• The emergence and development of digital media.