Mussy sends along this review by Robert Pinsky of The Book in the Renaissance. A snippet:
For a time, civil and religious authorities controlled the immense scale of explosive information and misinformation. When the Protestant Henry of Navarre ascended to the French throne in 1589, the news was available to English readers in “at least 40 pamphlets,” while his 1594 conversion to Roman Catholicism “was greeted with deafening silence in London.” Gradually, however, centralized control was overwhelmed by the reckless abundance of the tumultuous, street-oriented press. Petty gossip, ignorant screeds, inflammatory pamphlets and religious tracts flowed and overflowed.
