The Nature of the Page

Reviews / Votes

"Calhoun's insightful and frequently surprising ecopoetic research considers how the making-and unmaking-of paper in the early modern period affects the language and metaphors authors employed to express their ideas. The Nature of the Page creates a vital nerve plexus that communicates with premodern literary studies, book history and ecocriticism. It fills a long dusty scholarly lacuna that extends D.F. McKenzie's influential conception of a 'sociology of texts' into the nonhuman realm, what Calhoun calls an 'ecology of texts...' The Nature of the Page will change how readers see paper. No longer only black and white, its hybrid plant-animal-human ecologies will encourage book historians, environmental humanists, and premodern literary scholars to collaborate to better understand how the medium of historical record gives rise to the very ideas it records." (ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment) "Joshua Calhoun's book on paper, The Nature of the Page is gracefully, feelingly written; it is also impressively learned." (SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900) "An elegantly produced book, this is a must read for those interested in book history and archival science...the narrative he shares is a significant one, and discovering the truth about the past will continue to be vital to learning about our present, and our possible futures. In showing us precisely how 'the story of paper is as much an environmental story as it is a bibliographical story', The Nature of the Page provides an important service to those interested in the history of books and their use." (Textual Cultures) "The Nature of the Page achieves its intended end of compelling us to think about paper-indeed to think about it in multiple ways-as a medium with a message, as an environmental micro-history, as literary inspiration. It is a well-researched study, and what Calhoun refers to as his 'case histories' effectively illustrate this book's working premises. Its wit delightfully mirrors the seventeenth-century literature it considers; unusual juxtapositions unsettle comfortable assumptions and demand that we take seriously the ecology of reading." (Seventeenth Century News) "Clever and truly interesting, The Nature of the Page admirably draws our attention down to earth and to the plants and animals that live there. It will be welcomed by scholars in both ecocriticism and the material history of the book." (Ken Hiltner, University of California, Santa Barbara) "The Nature of the Page offers an innovative and refreshing approach to the study of books and reading by focusing on paper as a ubiquitous yet underappreciated material-revealing it to be a rich source of evidence for cultural history and literary interpretation. Readers will never look at paper quite the same way again." (Alan Galey, University of Toronto)