Revolting against the established book market (original) (raw)

Modern Reading: Swedish Book Consumption during the Late Nineteenth Century

2017

This study focuses on the reader and the book market in Sweden during the dynamic era of the Modern Breakthrough, with emphasis on c. 1879–90. It is a comparative study of three principally different kinds of literary institutions, which together constitute something of the backbone of the contemporary Swedish book market: Gumpert’s bookshop in Gothenburg, the parish library in Munka-Ljungby, and Sjöblom’s commercial lending library in Lund. From these three institutions, which served readers from all sections of society, extensive sales’ and borrowers’ records have been preserved. On the basis of these sources, using a theoretical and methodological framework from the fields of book history and sociology of literature, the study contributes to knowledge about the readers of the time, their access to literature and their preferences, as well as of their relation to the Modern Breakthrough literature. The study finds that the reading public of the period was highly segmented, and that access to literature was dependent on a number of factors. At the same time, the three institutions and their activities were, in different ways, part of, and contributing to, an on-going democratisation process of society as a whole, and increasingly, people from all layers of society could access their literature of choice – although, for a long time, economy, education and geography would be decisive factors for who would read what.

Big Books and Social Movements

Explanations of the past both reflect and influence the way we think about the present and future. Like artists and politicians, social movements develop a "reputation" that includes a capsule history of a movement's origins, goals, and impact. Both popular narratives and scholarly treatments identify four books published in the early 1960s as having spurred important social movements and government action. This "big book myth" provides a simple origins story for social movements, a version of an "immaculate conception" notion of social change. We compare the mythic accounts of feminist, environmental, anti-poverty, and consumer movements of the 1960s to fuller histories of these movements and find consistent distortions in the common big book narratives. Mythic accounts shorten the incubation time of social movements and omit the initiating efforts of government and political organizations. The myths develop and persist because they allow interested actors to package and contain a movement's origins, explicitly suggesting that broad social dynamics replicate idealized individual conversion stories. They also allow actors to edit out complicated histories that could compromise the legitimacy of a movement or a set of policy reforms. These mythic accounts spread and persist because they simplify complicated social processes and offer analogues to the individual process of becoming active, but they may lead us to misunderstand the past and make misjudgments about collective action and social change in the future. We consider those implications and call for more research on the construction of myths about the past.

Big Books and Social Movements: A Myth of Ideas and Social Change

Explanations of the past both reflect and influence the way we think about the present and future. Like artists and politicians, social movements develop a “reputation” that includes a capsule history of a movement's origins, goals, and impact. Both popular narratives and scholarly treatments identify four books published in the early 1960s as having spurred important social movements and government action. This “big book myth” provides a simple origins story for social movements, a version of an “immaculate conception” notion of social change. We compare the mythic accounts of feminist, environmental, anti-poverty, and consumer movements of the 1960s to fuller histories of these movements and find consistent distortions in the common big book narratives. Mythic accounts shorten the incubation time of social movements and omit the initiating efforts of government and political organizations. The myths develop and persist because they allow interested actors to package and contain a movement's origins, explicitly suggesting that broad social dynamics replicate idealized individual conversion stories. They also allow actors to edit out complicated histories that could compromise the legitimacy of a movement or a set of policy reforms. These mythic accounts spread and persist because they simplify complicated social processes and offer analogues to the individual process of becoming active, but they may lead us to misunderstand the past and make misjudgments about collective action and social change in the future. We consider those implications and call for more research on the construction of myths about the past.

Regional and Global readers: Transnational approaches to Book History and Literary Sociology in the Nordic countries

This paper explores the historiography of History of Reading in a Nordic context. The populations of the Nordic countries were probably the first in the world to ascend to mass literacy, and widespread basic reading ability was achieved by the early 1700s. The Nordic countries have always been dependent on the import of literature, both in translation and in the original language. In that sense, the Nordic readers can be said to have constituted " glocal " reading communities, with ties to both local and global book markets. The Nordic book market of the nineteenth century was marked by trans-national exchanges and political and linguistic cooperation , and only by then was access to books fully democratised. Future studies should take archival sources that can reveal reading habits on both a macro and micro level into careful consideration. It is further essential to compare the findings from both regional and global case studies in order to detect general patterns of book consumption.

Reform, Revolution, Riot? Transnational Nordic Sixties in the Radical Press, c.1958-1968

Ennen ja nyt: Historian tietosanomat, 2021

Bill Clinton, the first American president who belonged to the so-called baby boomer generation, once reflected on his own youth by saying: "If you look back on the 1960s and on balance, you think there was more good than harm, then you're probably a Democrat. If you think there was more harm than good, you're probably a Republican." 1

The Revolution Will Be Televised: The Global 1968 Protests in Norwegian Television News. (Berghahn Books 2011)

Between Prague Spring and French May. Opposition and Revolt in Europe, 1960-1980, 2011

Chapter in: Between Prague Spring and French May. Opposition and Revolt in Europe, 1960-1980. Edited by Martin Klimke, Jacco Pekelder & Joachim Scharloth “This volume offers many new insights into the complex history of 1968 on both sides of the Iron Curtain, bringing awareness to developments in smaller countries such as Yugoslavia, Denmark, and Norway that are usually omitted in existing literature. These essays should assist scholars studying Europe in the postwar period to transcend reductionist national narratives. The seventh volume of the Protest, Culture, and Society series is another welcome contribution to a much-needed and more comprehensive view of historical and cultural change in Europe around the mystical year of 1968.” · Journal of Cold War Studies “A wonderful work of collaborative and comparative history, truly international in scope. The authors teach at universities in nine different European nations, plus the United States and Japan. (...) The book will be of immense value to a wide range of specialists and can also be profitably read by anyone who lived through and wants to understand better the excitement, pain, trauma, and occasional triumphs of 1968, looking backward to 1960 and ahead to 1980 to place that extraordinary year in perspective.“ · David L. Schalk, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of History, Emeritus Vassar College “This volume is a very good contribution to historical studies, and for the study of transnational protest movements. Its strength derives from the variety of cases presented and from its focus on sub- or nonstate actors in a good selection of European countries.” · Memory Studies “…[uses] a wide range of disciplines, including linguistic analysis of the transmission of protest language…The vast array of different approaches is at times dizzying, but contributes to a remarkable survey of the social reality of the period. These [essays] also confront one of the more unpleasant aspects of the movements of the era – their relationship to armed struggle...The scholars included here confront this history in all its messy and sometimes unpleasant detail. The result is a bold reappraisal of the sometimes naïve, sometimes dangerous, but always courageous confrontation of one generation with the world it was meant to inherit.” · Comparativ. Leipziger Beiträge zur Universalgeschichte “The well-footnoted chapters are based on extensive research. There is an extensive bibliography and a 25-page chronology of events in 1968.” · Choice “Too often the protests of the 1960s are narrowly confined to the events of one year – 1968 – or to the same familiar set of countries. This welcome book offers broader vistas that includes European countries, big and small, from both sides of the Iron Curtain. In doing so, the authors allow us to transcend worn national narratives and reflect more broadly on how a whole continent was changed by the promise of global change and revolution. This book is thus an important addition for anyone seriously studying Europe in the postwar period." · James C. Kennedy, Author of Building New Babylon: The Netherlands in the 1960s, Professor of Dutch History since the Middle Ages, University of Amsterdam Abandoning the usual Cold War–oriented narrative of postwar European protest and opposition movements, this volume offers an innovative, interdisciplinary, and comprehensive perspective on two decades of protest and social upheaval in postwar Europe. It examines the mutual influences and interactions among dissenters in Western Europe, the Warsaw Pact countries, and the nonaligned European countries, and shows how ideological and political developments in the East and West were interconnected through official state or party channels as well as a variety of private and clandestine contacts. Focusing on issues arising from the cross-cultural transfer of ideas, the adjustments to institutional and political frameworks, and the role of the media in staging protest, the volume examines the romanticized attitude of Western activists to violent liberation movements in the Third World and the idolization of imprisoned RAF members as martyrs among left-wing circles across Western Europe. Martin Klimke is an associate professor of history at New York University Abu Dhabi. Jacco Pekelder is Senior Lecturer at the History Department of Utrecht University and is Guest Professor “Europaicum” (2013–2014) at the University of Saarbrücken. Joachim Scharloth is Professor of Applied Linguistics at TU Dresden, Germany

Political Movements and Changing Media Environments

In the last few decades the media has played a vital role in liberating colonized nations and those under autocratic forms of governance. The oppression of the state leads to the creation of alternative forms of representation; the literature that comes out of the oppressive regimes not only highlights the facts that exist in society but also encourages the people to participate in the resistance. The printing press of Gutenberg was put into use by the revolutionaries in the French revolution, giving a new role and direction to the media. The various political and social movements that happened after the Indian independence in various parts of the country have indeed helped the growth of media, specially the non-Hindi and English print media during the emergency period. Today the political and social movements are once again increasingly vulnerable to the political, religious and corporate groups. People continue to resist the oppression of the state and express their concerns from alternative sites of media, especially with the New Media. However, we are again entering a phase in human history when knowledge and information are in the process of being monopolized.

Sociology of Literature and Publishing in the Early 21st Century: Away From the Centre

Cultural Sociology, 2015

Literature is the art form of the nation-state. The written word was at the peak of its influence from the Enlightenment until late in the 20th century. National literatures became central to the development of national identities and the formation of national art worlds. Moreover, they were important vehicles for the exchange of ideas. However, the central position of the nation-state has dwindled due to the centrifugal effects of globalization and regionalization. Simultaneously, literature has given way to other, mainly visual and digital, cultural forms. In the process, it has lost much of its political clout. Literature seems to pose little or no threat to those groups it may previously have worried, and is of little consequence to elites in the 21st century. Instead, it has become an object of cultural consumption, for dwindling and aging publics.