English Press

In this succinct one-volume account of the rise and fall of the English press, Jeremy Black traces the medium's history from the emergence of the country's newspaper industry to the Internet age. The English Press focuses on the major developments in the world of print journalism and sets the history of the press in wider currents of English history, political, social, economic and technological. Black takes the reader through a chronological sequence of chapters, with a final chapter exploring possible scenarios for the future of print media. He investigates whether we are witnessing the demise or simply a crisis of the press in the aftermath of the News of the World scandal and Levinson Inquiry. A new title by one of the most eminent historians of Britain and a leading expert on the history of the press, The English Press will appeal to undergraduate students of British and media history and journalism, as well as to the general reader with an interest in the history of England and the media.

[An] important integrated analysis of the national and provincial press., This is an excellent addition to the field of journalism history. Completely up-to-date with contemporary developments and critical literature, Black provides an outstanding yet concise historical overview of how newspapers have come to have a central role in the contemporary world and what we might lose if they were to disappear from our media ecology., Many professional historians are still reluctant to take the press and media seriously. Jeremy Black is a notable exception. This is an original, provocative and concise historian’s history of the English press which demands our attention. His critical discussion of the present challenges facing the newspaper industry is anchored in a deep knowledge of the content of British newspapers from the eighteenth century onwards., [A] strong addition to recent scholarship on the English press, which succinctly and engagingly appreciates how newspapers occupy, and will continue to occupy, a complex and important place within ever-changing political, technological and social contexts.

Jeremy Black is Professor of History at the University of Exeter, UK, and a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of America and the West at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, USA.