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Martin
Review by: Elizabeth L. Eisenstein
The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 50, No. 3 (Sep., 1978), pp. 490-493
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1877111 .
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Book Reviews
The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing, 1450-1800. By Lucien
Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin. Translated by David Gerard. Edited by
Geoffrey Nowell-Smith and Dav,id Wootton. Foundations of History Library.
London: New Left Books; Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press,
1976. Pp. 378. $27.00.
The recent appearance of an English translation points to the remarkably
durable character of this survey of the printed book trade in early modern
Europe. Despite the many years which have elapsed since 1958, when the
initial French version was issued,' it is still unsurpassed as a work of
synthesis. A lion's share of credit for producing such a long-lived work
should go to Henri-Jean Martin, who wrote almost all of it in the end. But a
debt is also owed to Henri Berr, who planned for the volume when
designing his Evolution de l'humanite series-a series notable for enlisting
the services of many future luminaries of the Annales school. As long ago as
1930, Berr lined up Lucien Febvre to serve as author of this particular
volume. But Febvre procrastinated, first producing his masterwork on Le
Problme de l'incroyance2 for the same series and then becoming engaged in
other projects. Although his name appears as that of a coauthor and
although he did furnish an initial outline, the actual work of writing devolved
upon Martin, a formidably energetic and industrious scholar who now
presides over a branch of the French knowledge industry devoted to the
history of the book.
This prolonged, complex production history has led to a certain tension
between plan and execution. Febvre's preface and chapter headings reflect
his idiosyncratic, evocative, impressionistic style and provide somewhat
deceptive packaging for the prosaic contents, loaded with facts and figures,
which are supplied by Martin. Readers who are curious about Lucien
Febvre's views on "the impact of printing" should not be deceived by the
misleading subtitle tacked on to the English version. There is nothing in
L'Apparition du livre which comes close to resembling the seminal passages
on "L'Imprimerie et ses effets" in La ProbWme de lincroyance (pp. 418
ff.). Indeed, there is very little in the volume under review on the effects of
the advent of printing, and what little there is seems disappointingly trite.
The problems which most intrigued Febvre and which are still being tackled
by many of his disciples are different from those with which Martin is
concerned. Unlike other French scholars, such as Robert Mandrou, who
have also written on the French book trade, Martin is less interested in the
problem of 'mentalites" than in administrative and institutional issues. As
one can see from his more recent masterwork, the two-volume Lihre bi
I Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin, L'Apparitiondu livre, L'Evolution de
l'humanite (Paris. 1958).
2 Lucien Febvre, Le Probleme de lincrovance aiC XVI' si/cl:
La Religion de
Rabelais (Paris, 1942).
Permission to reprint a book review in this section may be obtained only from the author.
Book Reviews
491
Book Reviews
493
on the jacket cover has been given too much. The now-celebratedwork of
Lucien Febvre and the Annales school is featured prominently; Martin's
indefatigablelabors are downplayed. The volume is described as "one of the
most exciting works of cultural history to have been produced in Europe
since the war." Readers hoping to find something along the lines of the
work of a Huizinga, a Burckhardt,or a Lucien Febvre are bound to be
disappointed.For all Martin'ssterling virtues, he is an unexcitingauthor and
this translationmakes him unfairlyhard to read. Teachers who recommend
it to non-French-readingstudents will be runninga risk. Instead of stimulating interest in an intrinsicallyfascinating topic, The Coming of the Book in
the English version is likely to have a deadening effect.
ELIZABETH
L.
EISENSTEIN
University of Michigan
Methodology of History. By Jerzy Topolski. Translated by 0. Wojtasiew'iCZ.
Synthese Library, number 88.
Dordrecht and Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1977. Pp. x+690. $39.50.
This huge volume by a Polish Marxist, which has been translated into
adequate, if not impeccable, English, is in many ways an impressive one. As
one would expect, it contains extensive discussions of the nature and types
of historical sources and of various strategies of historical criticism and
research, including a long and rather conservative chapter on the quantitative revolution. But it also goes well beyond what most American readers
would normally call "methodology" of history, involving itself in problems
of theory of meaning and theory of knowledge generally; ontological concerns about the nature of space and time; the analysis of basic historiographical concepts like fact, explanation, cause, and law; and the characterization of the historian's subject matter in general terms, the author's own
word for the whole package being "historics." By way of preface, there is a
160-page survey of the history of reflection on history and historical inquiry
from the Greeks to the present day. This is a story in six rather unequal
stages, which are described as pragmatic, critical, erudite, structural, logical,
and dialectical, and for which exemplars are found in such figures as
Herodotus, Voltaire, Ranke, Weber, the logical positivists, and Marx. The
range of reading which is drawn on in filling out this ambitious scheme is
truly astonishing. While Polish sources are understandably prominent, the
works cited in other languages would provide an excellent select bibliography of the theory of historiography from the standpoint of a number of
schools and interests.
Topolski's Marxism leads him at times to quote from Lenin and other
authorities in ways that are rather tiresome. However, what is disappointing
about the book is not that it argues dogmatically from a Marxist point of
view-that could have been a valuable exercise-but that too often it argues
only feebly, or fails to produce anything that could be called an argument at
all. On issue after issue, after identifying allegedly "extreme" positions, the
author simply reports his own "opinion," which generally falls somewhere
in between. Among the very controversial theses he propounds with
scarcely a vestige of supporting argument, and which this reviewer will not
be alone in wanting to resist, are the following (I select only a few at
random): all antecedent knowledge brought by historians to the interpreta-