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Archives and Information in the Early Modern World

Online ISBN:
9780191869181
Print ISBN:
9780197266250
Publisher:
British Academy
Book

Archives and Information in the Early Modern World

Kate Peters (ed.),
Kate Peters
(ed.)

Senior College Lecturer in History, Murray Edwards College

Senior College Lecturer in History, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge
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Alexandra Walsham (ed.),
Alexandra Walsham
(ed.)

Professor of Modern History and Fellow of Trinity College

Professor of Modern History and Fellow of Trinity College, University of Cambridge
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Liesbeth Corens (ed.)
Liesbeth Corens
(ed.)

Career Development Fellow in Renaissance History, Keble College

Career Development Fellow in Renaissance History, Keble College, University of Oxford
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Published:
26 April 2018
Online ISBN:
9780191869181
Print ISBN:
9780197266250
Publisher:
British Academy

Abstract

This volume investigates the relationship between archives and information in the early modern world. It explores how the physical documentation that proliferated on an unprecedented scale between the 16th and 18th centuries was managed in the context of wider innovations in the sphere of communication and of significant upheaval and change. The chapters assess how archives were implicated in patterns of statecraft and scrutinise critical issues of secrecy and publicity, access and concealment. They analyse the interconnections between documentation and geographical distance, probing the part played by record-keeping in administration, governance, and justice, as well as its links with trade, commerce, education, evangelism, and piety. Alive to how the contents of archives were organised and filed, the contributors place paper technologies and physical repositories under the microscope. Extending beyond the framework of formal institutions to the family, household, and sect, this volume offers fresh insight into the possibilities and constraints of political participation and the nature of human agency. It deepens our understanding of the role of archives in the construction and preservation of knowledge and the exercise of power in its broadest sense. Above all, it calls for greater dialogue and creative collaboration to breach the lingering disciplinary divide between historians and archival scientists.

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