Variété et abondance. La copia et l’histoire de l’Europe des débuts de l’époque moderne

For many early modern Europeans, among the novelties of their age was a copia of information, experienced as both abundance and variety. The profusion of books that accompanied the advent of the printing press is widely known, but the period also saw many other unprecedented information flows. With the widespread adoption of paper instruments for recording the day-to-day functioning of government and statecraft, scholarship and science, and commerce and finance, records accumulated in great numbers, individuals and institutions were forced to adopt techniques to manage the information flows. Early modern Europeans of many stripes were forced to become information managers. “Paperwork” thus became a staple of early modern life, and has been with us ever since.