Matthew J. Shaw
An Inky Business
A History of Newspapers from the English Civil Wars to the American Civil War
An Inky Business is a book about the making and printing of news. It is a history of ink, paper, printing press and type, and of those who made and read newspapers in Britain, continental Europe and America from the British Civil Wars to the Battle of Gettysburg in the United States nearly 200 years later. But it is also an account of what news was and how the idea of news became central to public life. Newspapers ranged from purveyors of high seriousness to carriers of scurrilous gossip.
Our current obsession with ‘fake news’ – the worrying revelations or hints about how money, power and technology shape and control the press, and circulation of what is believed to be genuine information – has dark early-modern echoes.
‘A history of the radical, revolutionary, rowdy roots of the newspaper industry makes for a rip-roaring read . . . an enthalling chronicle of news-gathering and presses rolling . . . Many of the virtues and vices of today's press may be spotted in the papers of yesteryear. Fulminations against fake news, for example, predate not just our era but the main period covered by the book: in 1487 Henry VII issued an edict against "forged tidings and tales".’ — The New European
‘Shaw introduces An Inky Business as a history of news and newspapers in Britain, America, and continental Europe from the period of the English Civil Wars in the seventeenth century to that of the American Civil War in the nineteenth century. While he does indeed document the evolution of the format, contents, and purpose(s) of newspapers, he gives equal time to examining what constituted news in the eyes of printers and publishers, the public (both readers and nonreaders), and the authorities who sometimes regulated the press . . . Specialists may be interested in An Inky Business for Shaw’s meditations on the relationship between disseminating information and publishing a commodity known as the news, but general readers within and beyond the academy would likely find the book accessible and engaging for its broad attention to news, newspapers, and enthusiasm for consuming both from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth century.’ — Canadian Journal of History
‘Matt Shaw's An Inky Business is a vivid and incisive account of the origins of newspapers and their extraordinary role in the transformation of society over 200 years. With the very concept of news under threat, this book could not be more timely.’ — Paul Lay, editor of 'History Today' and author of 'Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell’s Protectorate' (2020)
‘A nuanced and thoughtful study of a key era in the evolution of the media environment.’ — Andrew Pettegree, Professor of History at the University of St Andrews and author of 'The Invention of News' (2014)
‘Emphasizing the increasing technological advancements which made – and continue to make – access to news easier, the book comes to an evocative end in an Afterword which contextualizes the continued role of news reporting in the world of political figures such as Boris Johnson and Donald J. Trump. It is here that the book draws a powerful parallel between historical and contemporary practices of news-making. Throughout this book, Matthew Shaw constructs an effortless narrative that clearly highlights the active role of the newspaper industry in the production of our societies and cultures both historically and today.’ — Forum for Modern Language Studies