ORCID
Milton L. Mueller: 0000-0002-9114-8259
Document Type
Book
Date
1988
Keywords
Communications History, Postal Systems, English Civil War, Sovereignty, Surveillance
Language
English
Disciplines
Communication | Economic History | Infrastructure | International Relations | Journalism Studies
Description/Abstract
An original and provocative analysis of the role of communications in the Thirty Years War and the English Revolution of 1640-1649. The years covered by the book saw the first printed new periodicals, the opening of the royal postal system to public correspondence, the monopolization of the posts by the state, and the exploitation of this communications infrastructure for surveillance and news purposes by the emerging territorial state. The book argues that all these developments were related aspects in the emergence of a currency of the word, a change in the temporal status of literate media. Printed commentary now flowed synchronously alongside the events it described creating dispersed publics and major changes in political institutions. Both the Thirty Years War and the English Revolution were simultaneous and violent reformulations of power relations among territorially dispersed political authorities.
Recommended Citation
Mueller, Milton L., "The Currency of the Word: Communications, War and Revolution in the formation of the Nation-state, 1608-1655" (1988). School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship. 185.
https://surface.syr.edu/istpub/185
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Included in
Economic History Commons, Infrastructure Commons, International Relations Commons, Journalism Studies Commons
Additional Information
Based on the author's Masters thesis at the University of Pennsylvania Annenberg School.