Out of sorts

More about the book

The new history of the book has become a dynamic academic field, with print culture theories at its core. Joseph A. Dane argues that typography, often overlooked, should be examined closely. He posits that typography acts not as a mere support to existing print theories but as a dissenting voice against them. In his exploration, he reveals how grand narratives of book history obscure valuable insights gained from examining books themselves. Dane investigates the discrepancies between internal and external evidence regarding Gutenberg's type and the misleading projections of seventeenth and eighteenth-century typesetting descriptions onto the fifteenth century, which complicate rather than clarify our understanding. He delves into modern myths surrounding gothic typefaces, the role of non-typographical elements in typographical form, and the assumptions influencing electronic editions of medieval poems and nineteenth-century visual representations of typographical history. Dane's work raises the question of whether he is a traditional or original historian of print, ultimately suggesting that one can embody both perspectives simultaneously.