Great Exchange: Making the News in Early Modern Europe

An epic history of the birth of news in Europe

News moves. It is a battle, a scandal, a disaster. It is a letter, a newspaper, a proclamation. News is a material thing, but also something between us, something we take into us and feel.

This book tells the story of news from the sunset of the Middle Ages to the rise of mass media in modern times. It begins in Renaissance Italy, with the envoys and me...