ABSTRACT
The relationship between information and power is a relevant subject for all times. Today’s perceived ‘information revolution’ has caused information to become a separate object of study during the last two decades for several disciplines. As the contemporary perspective is dominant, information history as a discipline of its own has not yet crystallized. In bringing together studies around a new research agenda on the relationship between information and power across time and space, presenting various governance regimes, media, materials, and modes of communication, this book forces us to rethink the prospects and challenges for such a new discipline.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part Theme I|66 pages
Experts and influence
chapter 3|15 pages
Knowledge is power
Opening up the teaching monopoly on the art of rulership in medieval Italy
1
chapter 5|16 pages
Electoral research, pollsters, and the performative power of information about the ‘public’
The Netherlands and the transatlantic connection (1945–1990)
chapter 6|18 pages
From neo-corporatism to regulatory governance
Interests, expertise, and power in Dutch extraparliamentary governance, c. 1900–2018
part Theme II|52 pages
Exchange and hegemony
chapter 7|17 pages
The perils of the post road
Diplomats, diplomatic couriers, and the informational fabric of early modern Europe
chapter 8|16 pages
Communication, information, and power in the Dutch colonial empire
The case of the Dutch East India Company, c. 1760
chapter 9|17 pages
Unifying the country
Information-gathering by the Dutch central government in the Batavian-French period (1795–1813)
part Theme III|64 pages
Disclosure and control
chapter 10|15 pages
Sailing and secrecy
Information control and power in Dutch overseas companies in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries
chapter 11|16 pages
Struggling for the ‘right to know’
American and British attitudes towards whistle-blowers (1966–2005)
chapter 12|15 pages
An optimizer of power?
The political usefulness of Dutch security intelligence, 1966–1989
chapter 13|16 pages
The power struggle between the party and the public library
The crisis of public librarianship in communist Romania (1970–1989)
part Theme IV|66 pages
Empowerment and neglect
chapter 14|17 pages
Contested law-making
Mobilization for the right to information law in India, 1990–2005
chapter 15|16 pages
Carved in stone?
The role of written and unwritten information in solving the Eurasian question after 1945
chapter 16|20 pages
Paper trails to private lives
The performative power of card indexes through time and space
