Hardback : £41.41
In the twenty-first century, mass media corporations are often seen as profit-hungry money machines. It was a different world in the early days of mass communication in America. Faith in Reading tells the remarkable story of the noncommercial religious origins of our modern media culture. In the early nineteenth century, a few visionary entrepreneurs decided the time was right to reach everyone in America through the medium of print. Though they were modern
businessmen, their publishing enterprises were not commercial businesses but nonprofit societies committed to the publication of traditional religious texts. Drawing on organizational reports and archival
sources, David Paul Nord shows how the managers of Bible and religious tract societies made themselves into large-scale manufacturers and distributors of print. These organizations believed it was possible to place the same printed message into the hands of every man, woman, and child in America. Employing modern printing technologies and business methods, they were remarkably successful, churning out millions of Bibles, tracts, religious books, and periodicals. They mounted massive campaigns
to make books cheap and plentiful by turning them into modern, mass-produced consumer goods. Nord demonstrates how religious publishers learned to work against the flow of ordinary commerce. They
believed that reading was too important to be left to the "market revolution," so they turned the market on its head, seeking to deliver their product to everyone, regardless of ability or even desire to buy. Wedding modern technology and national organization to a traditional faith in reading, these publishing societies imagined and then invented mass media in America.
In the twenty-first century, mass media corporations are often seen as profit-hungry money machines. It was a different world in the early days of mass communication in America. Faith in Reading tells the remarkable story of the noncommercial religious origins of our modern media culture. In the early nineteenth century, a few visionary entrepreneurs decided the time was right to reach everyone in America through the medium of print. Though they were modern
businessmen, their publishing enterprises were not commercial businesses but nonprofit societies committed to the publication of traditional religious texts. Drawing on organizational reports and archival
sources, David Paul Nord shows how the managers of Bible and religious tract societies made themselves into large-scale manufacturers and distributors of print. These organizations believed it was possible to place the same printed message into the hands of every man, woman, and child in America. Employing modern printing technologies and business methods, they were remarkably successful, churning out millions of Bibles, tracts, religious books, and periodicals. They mounted massive campaigns
to make books cheap and plentiful by turning them into modern, mass-produced consumer goods. Nord demonstrates how religious publishers learned to work against the flow of ordinary commerce. They
believed that reading was too important to be left to the "market revolution," so they turned the market on its head, seeking to deliver their product to everyone, regardless of ability or even desire to buy. Wedding modern technology and national organization to a traditional faith in reading, these publishing societies imagined and then invented mass media in America.
,.".a welcome addition to the developing interest in American
religious history as an important element in the larger national
story." --The Historian
"The volume brilliantly achieves whar it sets out to do: present a
coherent institutional history and an analysis of the
organizational logic of several major nonprofit religious
publishers. The book makes an important contribution to scholarship
in the history of the book, communications,
economics, and Protestant religious history. This volume is a
significant addition to scholarship of religious publishing and
economic history that deserves faithful reading." --Journal of
Religion
,.".short, clearly argued book that is a valuable contribution to
the study of print media." --American Historical Review
"David Paul Nord's Faith in Reading is a learned, imaginative, and
deft interpretation of the innovative role that evangelical
Protestants played in the development of mass communication in
19th-century America. Nord writes with economy and grace, providing
an elegant account of evangelicals'
motives and methods within the larger context of the print
revolution that preceded the Civil War. --Richard D. Brown,
University of Connecticut
"David Paul Nord's Faith in Reading is a jewel of a book, sparkling
with crystal clear prose and coruscating from each of its facets:
on reading in the churches and the world, on religion and commerce,
on business for mission and for profit, on slavery and voluntary
societies, and much, much
more." --Mark A. Noll, author of Americas God: From Jonathan
Edwards to Abraham Lincoln
"An important book, sophisticated in its reflections on the
so-called market revolution anddemocratization, and for these
reasons deserving the attention of everyone who studies antebellum
Protestantism." --David D. Hall, Harvard University
"The volume brilliantly achieves whar it sets out to do: present a
coherent institutional history and an analysis of the
organizational logic of several major nonprofit religious
publishers. The book makes an important contribution to scholarship
in the history of the book, communications,
economics, and Protestant religious history. This volume is a
significant addition to scholarship of religious publishing and
economic history that deserves faithful reading." --Journal of
Religion
,.".short, clearly argued book that is a valuable contribution to
the study of print media." --American Historical Review
"David Paul Nord's Faith in Reading is a learned, imaginative, and
deft interpretation of the innovative role that evangelical
Protestants played in the development of mass communication in
19th-century America. Nord writes with economy and grace, providing
an elegant account of evangelicals'
motives and methods within the larger context of the print
revolution that preceded the Civil War. --Richard D. Brown,
University of Connecticut
"David Paul Nord's Faith in Reading is a jewel of a book, sparkling
with crystal clear prose and coruscating from each of its facets:
on reading in the churches and the world, on religion and commerce,
on business for mission and for profit, on slavery and voluntary
societies, and much, much
more." --Mark A. Noll, author of Americas God: From Jonathan
Edwards to Abraham Lincoln
"An important book, sophisticated in its reflections on the
so-called market revolution and democratization, and for these
reasons deserving the attention of everyone who studies antebellum
Protestantism." --David D. Hall, Harvard University
..."short, clearly argued book that is a valuable contribution to
the study of print media." --American Historical Review
"David Paul Nord's Faith in Reading is a learned, imaginative, and
deft interpretation of the innovative role that evangelical
Protestants played in the development of mass communication in
19th-century America. Nord writes with economy and grace, providing
an elegant account of evangelicals'
motives and methods within the larger context of the print
revolution that preceded the Civil War. --Richard D. Brown,
University of Connecticut
"David Paul Nord's Faith in Reading is a jewel of a book, sparkling
with crystal clear prose and coruscating from each of its facets:
on reading in the churches and the world, on religion and commerce,
on business for mission and for profit, on slavery and voluntary
societies, and much, much
more." --Mark A. Noll, author of Americas God: From Jonathan
Edwards to Abraham Lincoln
"An important book, sophisticated in its reflections on the
so-called market revolution and democratization, and for these
reasons deserving the attention of everyone who studies antebellum
Protestantism." --David D. Hall, Harvard University
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