Books without borders

Volume 1 uses archive-based case studies of print culture in a number of countries around the world to examine the position of the book as a national concept. Among the questions raised by the contributors is whether the book enshrines the soul of a nation, or is instead a means by which nations talk to one another, sharing ideas, technologies, and texts. Volume 2 concentrates on one of the world's oldest, and most buoyant, book cultures: South Asia. It examines the transition from manuscript to hand press, orality and performance, scripts and nationalism, libraries and copyright, and the…