Includes articles previously published as part of The Oxford companion to the book, 2010, plus three new articles--Title page verso and dust jacket front flap.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Writing systems / Andrew Robinson -- The sacred book / Carl Olson -- The ancient book / Craig Kallendorf -- The history of the book in Byzantium / N.G. Wilson -- The European medieval book / Christopher de Hamel -- The European printing revolution / Cristina Dondi -- The book as symbol / Brian Cummings -- The transmission of Jewish knowledge through MSS and printed books / Emile G.L. Schrijver -- Missionary printing / M. Antoni J. Üc̈erler, S.J. -- Paper / Daven Christopher Chamberlain -- The technologies of print / James Mosley -- The economics of print / Alexis Weedon -- Censorship / Elisabeth Ladenson -- Concepts of intellectual property and copyright / Adam D. Moore -- The manuscript after the coming of print / Harold Love -- Printed ephemera / Michael Harris -- Children's books / Andrea Immel -- The history of illustration and its technologies / Paul Goldman -- Bookbinding / David Pearson -- Theories of text, editorial theory, and textual criticism / Marcus Walsh -- The electronic book / Eileen Gardiner and Ronald G. Musto -- Regional and national histories of the book. Britain, c.1475-1800 / Andrew Murphy ; Britain, 1801-1914 / Leslie Howsam ; Britain from 1914 / Claire Squires ; Ireland / Niall Ó Ciosáin and Clare Hutton ; France / Vincent Giroud ; The Low countries / Paul Hoftijzer ; Germany / John L. Flood ; Switzerland / Lukas Erne ; The Nordic countries / Charlotte Appel and Karen Skovgaard-Petersen ; The Iberian Peninsula / María Luisa López-Vidriero ; Italy / Neil Harris ; Modern Greece, c.1453-2000 / Alexis Politis ; Austria / John L. Flood ; Hungary / Bridget Guzner ; The Czech Republic and Slovakia / Devana Pavlik ; Poland / Janet Zmroczek ; The Baltic states / Jürgen M. Warmbrunn ; The Slavonic book in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus / Christine Thomas ; The Balkans / Ekaterina Rogatchevskaia and Aleksandra B. Vraneš ; Sub-Saharan Africa / Andrew van der Vlies ; The Muslim world / Geoffrey Roper ; The Indian Subcontinent / Abhijit Gupta ; China / J.S. Edgren ; Korea / Beth McKillop ; Japan / P.F. Kornicki ; Southeast Asia. 1, The islands / Edwin Paul Wieringa ; Southeast Asia. 2, The mainland / Jana Igunma ; Australia / Ian Morrison ; New Zealand / Shef Rogers ; Latin America (including Incas and Aztecs) / Eugenia Roldán Vera ; Canada / Patricia Lockhart Fleming ; America / Scott E. Casper and Joan Shelley Rubin ; The Caribbean and Bermuda / Jeremy B. Dibbell.

"This volume seeks to delineate the history of the production, dissemination, and reception of texts from the earliest pictograms of the mid-4th millennium to recent developments in electronic books."--P. xi.