Arthur der Weduwen (University of St Andrews)
Based on the developing coverage of the Universal Short Title Catalogue, this paper introduces what a comparative transnational study of print and peripheries can reveal about the early modern European book trade. By analysing book production across Scandinavia, the Baltic and Eastern Europe from the fifteenth to the end of the seventeenth century, this paper seeks to provide a broad perspective on the critical factors that allowed printing to develop and flourish in regions that were topographically distant from the central heartlands of European print production. This presentation makes a case for the importance of studying print culture from a comparative perspective and offers broader conclusions on the critical interactions between print, power and periphery in early modern Europe.