130,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock 🇳🇿

Overnight NZ-wide delivery 🚀 Auckland Bookstore • Open 7 days, 8:30am–5pm

The Great Exchange: Making the News in Early Modern Europe

By Joad Raymond Wren
0.0 (0 reviews)
Brief Description
The Great Exchange: Making the News in Early Modern Europe is an epic history of the birth of news in Europe. News moves. It is a battle, a scandal, a disaster. It is a letter, a newspaper, a proclamation. News is a material thing, but also... Read More
Format: Hardback
$12000
AVAILABLE WITH SUPPLIER Ships from our Auckland warehouse within 4-6 weeks

Found a better price? Request a price match

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

The Great Exchange: Making the News in Early Modern Europe is an epic history of the birth of news in Europe.

News moves. It is a battle, a scandal, a disaster. It is a letter, a newspaper, a proclamation. News is a material thing, but also something between us, something we take into us and feel.

This book tells the story of news from the sunset of the Middle Ages to the rise of mass media in modern times. It begins in Renaissance Italy, with the envoys and merchants who drew in and disseminated news across Europe, establishing its channels and conventions. Following the beat of news around the continent, it uncovers a vast, invisible network traversing the boundaries of geography and politics, religion and language.

Joad Raymond Wren allows the reader to see news—of the battle of Lepanto, the siege of Vienna—spreading around this network in real time. Dispelling the tenacious myth that news was, until the printing press, scarce and unreliable, and until the telegraph, slow and provincial, he opens up windows onto a world buzzing with news from faraway. News brought the distant closer, and provided the means for Europe to know itself. The continent was, for a time, held together by that most essential of human acts—communication.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780241188538

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 10 July 2025

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Allen Lane

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 39.0mm

Width: 164.0mm

Height: 241.0mm

Weight: 1057g

Pages: 624

Collections

European History History & Archaeology History & Military Joad Raymond Wren Non-Fiction Penguin Books

About the Author

Joad Raymond Wren is a writer and historian of early modern Europe who has taught at the universities of Oxford, Aberdeen, East Anglia and Queen Mary University of London. His previous books include Pamphlets and Pamphleteering in Early Modern Britain, The Invention of the Newspaper and Milton's Angels.

Also by Joad Raymond Wren

View all
  • The Uses of Utopia
    The Uses of Utopia
    A beguiling tour of utopian ideas and the pursuit of thinking differently. Utopia is not somewhere you can go. But neither is it an idle fantasy. It runs through history and literature from Plato to Thomas More, Margaret Cavendish to Ursula Le Guin. Utopia, this book shows, was for them a tool for exploring the horizons of thought, asking the...
    By Joad Raymond Wren
    Hardback
    $6500
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks

More from History & Military

View all
  • Behind Enemy Lines
    New Release
    Behind Enemy Lines
    Archie Gibson's initiation into desert warfare almost proved to be his last. Barrelling through the sand dunes at the wheel of his truck, Gibson spied a searing flash of light up ahead, the signature of a feared German 88mm gun firing ... right at him. He leapt from his speeding vehicle just before it was torn apart and turned into...
    By Damien Lewis
    Paperback
    $3299
    Elsewhere:
    $3999
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    The Cauldron
    How did an elderly cleric overthrow the Shah of Iran and change the world?Why did Bin Laden attack the USA - and why did the USA destroy Saddam?How did Britain and France carve up the Middle East - and why did the Kurds never get their own state? THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO THE MAKING OF TODAY'S MIDDLE EAST: A SPELLBINDING...
    By Simon Sebag Montefiore
    Hardback
    $4999
    Elsewhere:
    $6000
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Saving Elli
    One child. Two years in hiding. Three lives in mortal danger. In Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, near Anne Frank's house, another Jewish girl is hidden. Her name is Elli. Her father has been executed at Mauthausen concentration camp. Her mother is fleeing for her life. Elli is next. To save her, resistance couple Frits and Jo Hakkens must risk everything, concealing her...
    By Doug Gold
    Paperback
    $3299
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Spy and the Traitor
    The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre is a spellbinding Cold War thriller that unravels the true story of Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB double agent who risked everything to aid the British in the battle against Soviet oppression. In meticulously researched detail, Macintyre paints a vivid portrait of espionage, double-crossing, and unparalleled bravery, giving readers a riveting glimpse into...
    By Ben Macintyre
    Paperback
    $2100
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Dylan's Pick Dylan's Pick
    Suicidal Empathy
    The bestselling author of The Parasitic Mind shows why empathy in politics leads to civilizational collapse. What happens when a society elevates victimhood to a virtue and decides that punishment is cruel? You get the disease Dr. Gad Saad calls suicidal empathy. And the West may be terminally infected. In his new book, Suicidal Empathy, Saad unleashes a blistering critique...
    By Gad Saad
    Paperback
    $3099
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • On Sale
    12% off
    The Wager
    THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 'The beauty of The Wager unfurls like a great sail... one of the finest nonfiction books I've ever read' Guardian 'The greatest sea story ever told' Spectator 'I cannot think of anyone who would not love this book... It is an extraordinary true story, beautifully...
    By David Grann
    Paperback
    $2100
    Elsewhere:
    $3999
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Salt
    Homer called it a divine substance. Plato described it as especially dear to the gods. As Mark Kurlansky so brilliantly relates here, salt has shaped civilisation from the beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of mankind. Wars have been fought over salt and, while salt taxes secured empires across Europe and Asia, they...
    By Mark Kurlansky
    Paperback
    $3500
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Man's Search For Meaning
    Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl is a profound, thought-provoking memoir and psychological exploration that delves into the harrowing experiences of life in Nazi concentration camps, intertwined with the author’s groundbreaking theories on existential psychology. The book is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, offering a beacon of hope and a roadmap for finding purpose...
    By Viktor E Frankl
    Paperback
    $1800
    Elsewhere:
    $2100
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Discipline
    Silence is complicity, but how do we confront the cost of speaking up? Sydney, May 2021. Ashraf is an academic whose career and personal life are in freefall. Hannah is a young journalist struggling to honour the voices of her community. When a Year 12 Al-Bayinnah College student is arrested for protesting a university's ties to an Israeli weapons manufacturer,...
    By Randa Abdel-Fattah
    Paperback
    $4000
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Biological War
    New Release
    Biological War
    There is an invisible weapon among us. By the time you know you are a victim, it has turned you into a killer. A blistering new non-fiction thriller from the Baillie Gifford shortlisted author of Nuclear War (200,000 copies sold). A lab accident, a bio-attack, a global pandemic, and the collapse of human society. In this essential new book, based...
    By Annie Jacobsen
    Paperback
    $3299
    Elsewhere:
    $4000
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • On Sale
    20% off
    The Golden Menhir
    Assurancetourix is entering the legendary Gallic bards' competition to win the golden menhir. But with the Romans keeping a close watch, Asterix and Obelix must protect him at all costs. Their mission? Keep him safe-no matter what... even if it means risking their own ears! First released as a book-disc in 1967, this adventure soon became a rare treasure, long...
    By René Goscinny
    Hardback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $3499
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • All The Presidents' Wars
    New Release
    All The Presidents' Wars
    From a multiple New York Times bestselling author, here is an eye-opening history of the United States' war on terror across four presidential administrations. The year 2026 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of 9/11, the most devastating attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. Within days, the United States began to declare its war on terror: 'Either you are with us,...
    By Peter Bergen
    Paperback
    $4500
    In Stock
    Ships today

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.

History & Military lists from the team

Explore our curated lists from our heroes to find your next read!

The Latest at Book Hero

View all