The Handbook of Communication History

The Handbook of Communication History addresses central ideas, social practices, and media of communication as they have developed across time, cultures, and world geographical regions. It attends to both the varieties of communication in world history and the historical investigation of those forms in communication and media studies. The Handbook editors view communcation as encompassing patterns, processes, and performances of social interaction, symbolic production, material exchange, institutional formation, social praxis, and discourse. As such, the history of communication cuts across social, cultural, intellectual, political, technological, institutional, and economic history. As a whole, the volume gathers disparate strands of communication history into one volume, offers an accessible and panoramic view of the development of communication over time and geographical places, and provides a catalyst to further work in communication history.