by John A. Lane (2004)
"The Plantin-Moretus Museum has one of the world's richest collections of type specimens, many surviving nowhere else. They include types by Garamont, Granjon, Van den Keere, Briot, Van Dyck, Kis, Fournier, Rosart, Gille, Didot and many other masters from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century. Since the Plantin-Moretus printing office acquired most of the specimens when new, moreover, the collection as a whole tells a story in a way that collections assembled piecemeal in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries cannot. Finally, the Museum's archives help to document the origins of many specimens." "This first detailed catalogue of the Museum's specimens reports the styles and sizes of type shown, describes the structures and paper stocks, notes relations with other specimens in the collection and elsewhere, and provides references to literature on many of the individual types shown." "Preliminary notes on the type founders and printers who issued the specimens include chronologies of the foundries and information on the origins of their materials, sometimes supplemented with information about the history of the firms and the genealogy of the founders. Nearly all of the nineteen specimens illustrated at their original size appear here for the first time, and extensive indexes make this book a powerful reference tool for type specimen enthusiast and printing historians."--BOOK JACKET.
Thomas Kent Edlund
The National Socialist government of Germany, in May of 1939, conducted a census of the nation's "non-Teutonic" peoples. Plans for this undertaking stemmed from a 1936 decision intended to identify those "ethnic subversives" who threatened Hitler's fascist state. Authority for this activity was vested with the Reichssippenamt, an historically respectable government department dating from Bismarckian times.
Bruce Michelson
"Trained as a printer while still a boy, and thrilled throughout his life by the automation of printing and the headlong expansion of American publishing, Mark Twain wrote about the consequences of this technological revolution for culture and personal identity. Printer's Devil is the first book to explore these themes in some of Twain's best-known literary works and in his most daring speculations on American society, the modern condition, and the nature of the self. Playfully and anxiously, Twain often thought about typeset words and published images as powerful forces for political and moral change, personal riches and ruin, and epistemological turmoil. In his later years, Twain wrote about the printing press as a center of meta-physical power, a force that could alter the fabric of reality. Studying these themes in Mark Twain's writings, Bruce Michelson also provides a fascinating overview of the technological changes that transformed the American printing and publishing industries during Twain's lifetime, changes that opened new possibilities for content, for speed of production, for the size and diversity of a potential audience, and for international fame. The story of Twain's life and art amid this media revolution is a story with powerful implications for our own time, as we ride another wave of radical change for printed texts, authors, truth, and consciousness."--Jacket.
Siegbert Wolf
Als Literaturkritiker, Übersetzer, Roman- und Novellenautor, Vortragsredner und Essayist, als nichtmarxistischer libertärer Sozialist und jüdischer Kulturphilosoph genoss Gustav Landauer (1870–1919) hohes Ansehen. Er agierte als Sprach- und Kulturkritiker, sowie Initiator zahlreicher Projekte. Was Gustav Landauer vor allem antrieb, betraf die Suche nach einer menschlichen Gemeinschaft freier und gleichberechtigter Menschen in einer dezentralen und föderal vernetzten Welt. Ob in seiner umfassenden Rezeption der Dramen William Shakesspeares sowie der Französischen Revolution von 1789 oder in seinen zahlreichen Vorträgen (deutsche und internationale Literaturgeschichte, Regeneration des Judentums, Antimilitarismus) – stets wird seine Sehnsucht nach einem selbstbestimmten Miteinander deutlich. Landauers noch heute lesenswerte Bücher und Essays vermitteln das sozialgeschichtliche Panorama einer bewegten Zeit am Ausgang des 19. Jahrhunderts und in den ersten beiden Jahrzehnten des 20. Jahrhunderts. Seine Wirkung motivierte so unterschiedliche Zeitgenossen wie Martin Buber, Erich Mühsam, Margarete Susman, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Georg Kaiser und Ernst Toller. (Quelle: Edition AV)
Lewis Blackwell
"Twentieth-Century Type surveys the significant issues that have shaped the history and evolution of typography and graphic design, showing how current typographic trends are part of a continuously changing movement that can be plotted through the decades. Illustrated with over three hundred examples - more than two hundred of which are in color - the book charts significant topics including the arrival of mass-production; the birth of the art director; the appearance of the grid (and its subsequent rejection); the coming of non-print media; and the launch of the Macintosh computer and its ushering in of a new generation of designers enfranchised by digital technology." "This revised edition of a fundamental work brings the story up to date with new text and images covering type on screen and, in particular, type for the internet. Combining an assessment of the culture of experimentation in contemporary typographic design alongside a clear presentation of the field's historical context, the book is an informal and accessible source for all students of design and for designers needing an expert overview of typography."--Jacket.