4 Studies on books and publishing: Perspectives and tools for intellectual history

The chapters in this volume focus on engagement with radical internationalist periodicals in the BLDS Legacy Collection and elsewhere. The contributors to this volume have examined the discourse and visual culture promulgated through Tricontinental, Jeune Afrique and other periodicals. They have also examined the context in which organisations like OSPAAAL and AAPSO came to produce radical, internationalist periodicals in the mid-twentieth century. Numerous contributors to this volume have also emphasised the importance of direct contact with printed material in their research into radical, anti-imperial and Third Worldist movements and solidarities. This chapter, drawing on research into the role of publishing houses in intellectual history (Zarowsky, 2023), provides a broader overview of how the study of print cultures and publishing itself as a social practice, can further enrich work on radical periodicals that takes place in archives and special collections.

General criteria

Ideas and representations are not produced or circulated in a vacuum: between the author and the readers, a series of social processes mediate, among which one particular activity stands out: publishing. It is not the authors who make the books, but rather the publishers. The ideas that circulate in society go through several mediations before reaching us ‘fully formed’, ready to be read in the form of a book. Firstly, publishers make selection decisions, that is, they choose what they want to publish from a broad range of possibilities; secondly, they help shape the material through their work with texts (editing); finally, with the content of the book ready, they create a paratextual apparatus that, through titles, covers, forewords, and flaps, among other resources, frames the text itself and guides how it should or wants to be read. These procedures are referred to as marking operations.

The book, as Pierre Bourdieu (2008) teaches, has two faces: one economic and one symbolic one. It is a commodity that must be sold in a market and a cultural asset, a medium for the production of meaning. When defining their editorial projects, publishers consider these dimensions: in general terms, they may be oriented by a cultural vocation (to disseminate certain ideas or a certain type of literature), or by the expectation of generating a profit regardless of the symbolic content of the commodity they produce. Publishing houses define their profiles by how they combine these possibilities.

An editorial project is defined by a catalogue. The catalogue is something like the ‘work’ of a publisher: the titles it publishes are not chosen at random but based on an orientation or a project: a publishing house may lean towards bestsellers and already proven and recognised formats or towards avant-garde literature; it may aim to spread certain types of ideas or academic disciplines; it may be conservative, leftist, or pluralist. Over time—and depending on the trajectory it develops—a publishing house can change its position in the publishing field (e.g. from emerging to established) and therefore its profile. The catalogue of a publishing house is often divided into collections and series that usually group books by genres, topics, or disciplines. A book, by being part of a catalogue, becomes part of a larger project. The catalogue of a publishing house and its collections thus form the first intellectual context in which a particular book is produced and circulated.

What we have discussed so far defines the book as a specific cultural artifact and as a social practice that involves specific rationalities and relationships between groups and individuals. Recognising the social nature of publishing activity helps us decipher how ideas and representations are produced and circulated within a culture. If we think of intellectual history as the study of ideas in their production and circulation contexts, as the exploration of the work of thought within historical experiences, taking into account the book’s nature as a social practice, as a result of social mediations, is a useful prism to understand how ideas and representations emerge, are produced, circulate in a given era, and, above all, how these ideas and representations contribute to the shaping of society itself. As Raymond Williams (1986) states (based on an idea from Mikhail Bakhtin and Pavel Medvedev): it is not ideas that relate to each other but people who relate to each other through ideas. And ideas, as we said, are embodied and circulated through books and prints, that is, through publishing practices that mediate between authors and readers.

This perspective is especially valuable for the study of left-wing culture, as long as it is understood as something broader than the history of parties, their ideas or doctrines. Heirs of the Enlightenment tradition, from the second half of the 19th century, leftist movements made printed materials a privileged vehicle for spreading ideas and, above all, for educating or ‘raising awareness’ among their followers or intended audience (the people, the masses, the working class, etc.). Education was conceived as a means of emancipation. Leftist movements also made printed materials a vehicle for political and cultural organisation: since the mid-19th century and strongly in the 20th century, at least in the West, most leftist parties or movements with aspirations to intervene in public life organised themselves through newspapers, books, and magazines. This implied the existence of publishing houses, printing presses, and bookstores, and behind them, an extensive network of publishers, editors, writers, proofreaders, designers, printers, and booksellers, among others. The study of this cultural ecosystem surrounding print is thus a productive tool for exploring the production and circulation of leftist ideas throughout history, especially the ways political and intellectual movements organised to expand their influence and reach. This tool becomes even more useful if a transnational historical perspective is adopted. If leftist culture (especially Marxist, but not exclusively; also anarchism, Third Worldism and so on) had a cosmopolitan and internationalist inclination, printed materials became one of the main means of constructing this culture. In an original formula, given the weight of publishing activities in its global expansion, Adriana Petra (2022) defined the 20th-century communist movement as a ‘paper international’. In contrast, in the early 21st century, ‘mediologist’ Régis Debray (1996) linked the decline of the socialist cycle—whose end he situates around 1968—with the decline of the ‘graphosphere’ (the culture associated with print) and its replacement by the ‘videosphere’. Debray’s hypothesis is debatable but suggestive.

Reading traces, pointing to processes

We have synthesised the premises guiding the study of books and publishing as a productive prism for intellectual history, particularly for the history of leftist movements, especially in their transnational dimension. Let us now say a few words about how to approach these materials. Or in other words: how do we recognise in these types of printed works the marks of a social practice and past context? On the very textual surface of the printed book, we can read traces that help us decipher its social nature.

Let’s name a few. Every book has its credits or legal page. There, information is provided on the year of publication, who the publisher is, the year of the original edition—if it is a reissue—the original title—if it is a translation—the various cities of publication, and sometimes the number of printed copies in an edition. The paratext also informs about the context of the book’s production: whether the text was written by the author or produced by the publisher (for instance, if the publisher gathered scattered or unpublished texts such as classes, conferences or articles; and when they were issued); if there were changes compared to previous editions (additions, deletions, etc.). Over time, we tend to lose sight of both the original contexts and the variations a text undergoes. We take its content as if it were an idea or truth that the author wanted to convey directly—already complete and closed—to their readers. From a sociohistorical and sociosemiotic perspective, on the contrary, we read traces in the text pointing to the processes that shaped it. It is, ultimately, about inscribing ideas and their bearers—authors and publishers—within a specific context or culture and in a process of production and circulation of meanings.

Digital library catalogues are also a useful tool. When we search for a book in a library, we find all its available editions, differentiated by publisher, year, and city of publication. All editions can provide relevant information to the researcher. If we search by the author’s name, we will find the availability of that same book’s editions in different languages within the same library. The website WorldCat offers data on all the editions of a book over time and its availability in libraries worldwide. While databases are a fabulous tool, direct contact with the printed material is irreplaceable for the researcher. Beyond the aforementioned aspects, the printed work offers information on the materiality of the edition: the size, the type of paper, and above all, it grants us access to the paratext (see also chapter by Danny Millum in this volume).

The paratext

The study of the paratext is a privileged element when addressing publishing as intellectual mediation; that is, the way ideas are linked to contexts and historical experiences. Simply put: the paratext is all the information that frames and organises a text: title, summary, back cover, cover, presentations, forewords, acknowledgments, legal information on the edition, printing and print runs, inclusion in a collection, etc. Strictly speaking, there is no text without paratext. Beyond basic information about a book’s content or its author’s life, the paratext gives us insights into the motivation that may have guided a publisher to release it and the kind of reader they imagine. Through the paratext, the publisher frames the text they publish and directs how they want its content to be read; in doing so, they provide a representation or image of the author, the reader, and their own publishing activity. Introductory notes, back covers, and flaps are central to this. In them, the voices of authors, publishers and editors coexist. How is an author or the content of the book presented? What problems is it assumed to address and solve? What stance does the publisher take on these issues? We can also consider as part of the paratext all the external statements accompanying a book’s circulation, which guide the reader’s approach: advertisements, posters, reviews, and interviews with the authors in magazines and newspapers. This type of external paratext provides precise information on the circulation of a book at a particular time, the reactions or controversies it might have generated, and more. Sometimes libraries collect and group this type of material. We can search for it under the author’s name as a ‘press clippings file,’ ‘author file’, or ‘biographical file’. Sometimes authors or publishers themselves compile this material in their personal archives, which they later donate (or their heirs do) to a library or documentation centre.

Covers and visuality

In every book, the cover image is a significant element in the production of meaning. In the 20th century, with the expansion and massification of the reading public, covers gained increasing importance for the industry. Books started to be sold not only in bookstores but also in kiosks or shops, and, like other consumer goods, were advertised in newspapers, magazines, or posters in public spaces. As the gateway to its content, the key or framework that connects it with the reader, the visual aspect of a cover represents a valuable document for exploring the cultural significance a book assumes at a particular time. Despite its importance, it is an element often overlooked in intellectual history. However, the cover image encapsulates the publisher’s expectations and how they intend to engage the reader. Thus, it represents a privileged document for exploring how a book inscribes itself within the horizon of a culture.

The visuality of a cover is composed of several elements. While presenting them all would require a full treatise, a fundamental principle of analysis is to consider the image as an artifice or object of design. This means that the visual composition of a cover is not random; rather, it responds to specific objectives, decisions, and technical resources. While this may seem evident, we generally do not question the image as a design construct since we tend to think that an image transparently or naturally represents its object (in this case, the content of a book). The graphic design of a cover, on the contrary, is an editorial decision associated with technical resources (methods of work and printing), visual aesthetics, and the discursive possibilities (that which can be thought or said) of a given era (see in particular the chapter by Alexandra Lewis in this volume). The observer must take into account this historical nature of visuality, its belonging to a particular time, and analyse, in each particular book or collection, the use of a type of typography and its size, the relationship between text and image, the use of grids or frames, drawings or photographs, the graphic or pictorial motifs employed, and their meaning. If we think alongside Raymond Williams that a culture is composed not only of ideas but also of feelings or emotions, the analysis of the visuality that gives material form to the book reveals itself as a precious tool for embedding its study within cultural analysis and intellectual history.

In summary

A book is a social practice that connects an author with their readers and contributes to the production and circulation of ideas and representations. On the surface of texts, we find traces that allow us to decipher this social nature of print. Understanding the materiality of books, their various editions and translations; their places of production, their visuality, and the expectations that may have guided authors, publishers, and readers; all of this represents a central strategy for studying intellectual history, particularly leftist culture. Through their editions, books travel through time and space when they are reprinted or translated outside their original national context of publication. When a book moves, it not only leaves behind its production context but also incorporates the society that receives it. Behind books, there are individuals and relationships between them. The study of books and publishing allows us to explore the various contexts of production and circulation of ideas and representations throughout collections such as the British Library for Development Studies Legacy Collection (and in relation to specific publishers such as OSPAAAL), as well as how people have related to one another through them.

References

Bourdieu, P. (2008). A conservative revolution in publishing. Translation studies, 1(2), 123-153. https://doi.org/10.1080/14781700802113465

Debray, R. (1996). Media manifestos: on the technological transmission of cultural forms (E. Rauth, Trans.). Verso.

Petra, A. (2022). Intellectuals and Communist culture: Itineraries, problems, and debates in post-war Argentina (R. Wolpin, Trans.). Palgrave Macmillan.

Williams, R. (1986). The uses of cultural theory. New Left Review, 158(1), 19-31. https://newleftreview.org/issues/i158/articles/raymond-williams-the-uses-of-cultural-theory

Zarowsky, M. (2023). Allende en Argentina: Intelectuales, prensa y edicion entre lo local y lo global (1970-1976). Buenos Aires: Tren en Movimento.