Press, Politics and the Public Sphere in Europe and North America, 1760-1820

Newspapers are a vital component of print and political cultures, and as such they informed as well as documented the social and political upheavals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, despite the huge influence attributed to them by both contemporary observers and historians, our knowledge of the nature and function of the newspaper press itself remains scant. Press, Politics and the Public Sphere in Europe and North America, 1760–1820 aims to fill this gap by examining aspects of the press in several European countries and America, both individually and comparatively, during this particularly turbulent and important period. Contributors explore the relationship between newspapers and social change, specifically in the context of the part played by the press in the political upheavals of the time. The collection examines the relationship between newspapers and public opinion, and attempts to define their place in the emergence of a 'public sphere'.

HANNAH BARKER is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Manchester. She is the author of Newspapers, Politics, and Public Opinion in Late Eighteenth-Century England (1998), Newspapers, Politics and English Society, 1695–1855 (2000) and editor, with David Vincent, of Language, Print and Electoral Politics 1790–1832 (2001).

SIMON BURROWS is Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Leeds. He is the author of French Exile Journalism and European Politics, 1792–1814 (2000), and has published articles in a variety of journals, including the International History Review, French History, the Journal of European Studies and Eighteenth-Century Life.