The Intellectual Properties of Learning
A Prehistory from Saint Jerome to John Locke
9780226487922
9780226488080
The Intellectual Properties of Learning
A Prehistory from Saint Jerome to John Locke
Providing a sweeping millennium-plus history of the learned book in the West, John Willinsky puts current debates over intellectual property into context, asking what it is about learning that helped to create the concept even as it gave the products of knowledge a different legal and economic standing than other sorts of property.
Willinsky begins with Saint Jerome in the fifth century, then traces the evolution of reading, writing, and editing practices in monasteries, schools, universities, and among independent scholars through the medieval period and into the Renaissance. He delves into the influx of Islamic learning and the rediscovery of classical texts, the dissolution of the monasteries, and the founding of the Bodleian Library before finally arriving at John Locke, whose influential lobbying helped bring about the first copyright law, the Statute of Anne of 1710. Willinsky’s bravura tour through this history shows that learning gave rise to our idea of intellectual property while remaining distinct from, if not wholly uncompromised by, the commercial economy that this concept inspired, making it clear that today’s push for marketable intellectual property threatens the very nature of the quest for learning on which it rests.
Willinsky begins with Saint Jerome in the fifth century, then traces the evolution of reading, writing, and editing practices in monasteries, schools, universities, and among independent scholars through the medieval period and into the Renaissance. He delves into the influx of Islamic learning and the rediscovery of classical texts, the dissolution of the monasteries, and the founding of the Bodleian Library before finally arriving at John Locke, whose influential lobbying helped bring about the first copyright law, the Statute of Anne of 1710. Willinsky’s bravura tour through this history shows that learning gave rise to our idea of intellectual property while remaining distinct from, if not wholly uncompromised by, the commercial economy that this concept inspired, making it clear that today’s push for marketable intellectual property threatens the very nature of the quest for learning on which it rests.
400 pages | 1 halftone | 6 x 9 | © 2017
Education: Education--General Studies
History: European History, History of Ideas
Law and Legal Studies: Legal History
Library Science and Publishing: Publishing
Reviews
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
The Commonwealth of Learning
Part One: Monastery and School
Chapter Two
The Medieval Monastic Paradox
Chapter Three
Learning in the Early Middle Ages
Chapter Four
The Patronage of Medieval Learning
Chapter Five
The Learned Turn of the High Middle Ages
Part Two: University and Academy
Chapter Six
The Translation Movements of Islamic Learning
Chapter Seven
The Medieval Universities of Oxford and Paris
Chapter Eight
The Humanist Revival
Chapter Nine
Learned Academies and Societies
Chapter Ten
Early Modern Oxford and Cambridge
Part Three: Locke and Property
Chapter Eleven
A Theory of Property
Chapter Twelve
An Act for the Encouragement of Learning
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
The Commonwealth of Learning
Part One: Monastery and School
Chapter Two
The Medieval Monastic Paradox
Chapter Three
Learning in the Early Middle Ages
Chapter Four
The Patronage of Medieval Learning
Chapter Five
The Learned Turn of the High Middle Ages
Part Two: University and Academy
Chapter Six
The Translation Movements of Islamic Learning
Chapter Seven
The Medieval Universities of Oxford and Paris
Chapter Eight
The Humanist Revival
Chapter Nine
Learned Academies and Societies
Chapter Ten
Early Modern Oxford and Cambridge
Part Three: Locke and Property
Chapter Eleven
A Theory of Property
Chapter Twelve
An Act for the Encouragement of Learning
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index