Siva Vaidhyanathan
I thought I understood American publishing. After reading this work, I am struck by how little I actually knew.
Siva Vaidhyanathan, University of Virginia, and author of The Anarchist in the Library: How the Clash Between Freedom and Control is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System
John Durgaham Peters
The Late Age of Print is exciting, clear, topical, interesting, and important. Ted Striphas has a voracious curiosity and is a great finder of material. How many of us have reflected on the history of bookshelves or have bothered to understand the mechanics of ISBN numbers or their political-economic-intellectual significance? Who knew the full story behind Oprah's Book Club, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble? This book provides a fine overview of the best English-language scholarship on books and print culture. Tackling the broad meaning of books over the past century, it says something broader about life in our era. Striphas gives the best integrated overview of the book in our moment and participates in public debates about education, literature, culture, and capitalism.
Janice Radway
Neither overly alarmist nor excessively nostalgic about the fate of books in a digital age, The Late Age of Print provides a lucid, balanced view of how books are changing in response to a fast-evolving media environment. Ted Striphas proves to be a highly reliable guide to the question of what might happen to books and book reading in the years to come. He will interest anyone who has ever wondered how writing and reading will be conducted in the future.
Janice Radway, Northwestern University, and author of A Feeling for Books: The Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Taste, and Middle-Class Desire
John Durham Peters
The Late Age of Print is exciting, clear, topical, interesting, and important. Ted Striphas has a voracious curiosity and is a great finder of material. How many of us have reflected on the history of bookshelves or have bothered to understand the mechanics of ISBN numbers or their political-economic-intellectual significance? Who knew the full story behind Oprah's Book Club, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble? This book provides a fine overview of the best English-language scholarship on books and print culture. Tackling the broad meaning of books over the past century, it says something broader about life in our era. Striphas gives the best integrated overview of the book in our moment and participates in public debates about education, literature, culture, and capitalism.
John Durham Peters, University of Iowa, and author of Courting the Abyss: Free Speech and the Liberal Tradition