Minor Knowledge and Microhistory

Manuscript Culture in the Nineteenth Century

Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon author Davið Ólafsson author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd

Published:14th Oct '16

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

This hardback is available in another edition too:

Minor Knowledge and Microhistory cover

This book studies everyday writing practices among ordinary people in a poor rural society in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Using the abundance of handwritten material produced, disseminated and consumed some centuries after the advent of print as its research material, the book's focus is on its day-to-day usage and on "minor knowledge," i.e., text matter originating and rooted primarily in the everyday life of the peasantry.

The focus is on the history of education and communication in a global perspective. Rather than engaging in comparing different countries or regions, the authors seek to view and study early modern and modern manuscript culture as a transnational (or transregional) practice, giving agency to its ordinary participants and attention to hitherto overlooked source material. Through a microhistorical lens, the authors examine the strength of this aspect of popular culture and try to show it in a wider perspective, as well as asking questions about the importance of this development for the continuity of the literary tradition. The book is an attempt to explain “the nature of the literary culture” in general – how new ideas were transported from one person to another, from community to community, and between regions; essentially, the role of minor knowledge in the development of modern men.

" (...) the authors' analysis of the work and lives of five Icelandic scribes enriches understanding of 19th-century literacy, history, and culture in ways that have applications beyond Icelandic studies and could particularly interest scholars of literacy, philology, historiography, bibliography, and more."


-M. Anderson, Southern Oregon University

ISBN: 9781138812079

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 476g

242 pages