Information Beyond Borders

International Cultural and Intellectual Exchange in the Belle Époque

The period in Europe known as the Belle Epoque was a time of vibrant and unsettling modernization in social and political organization, in artistic and literary life, and in the conduct and discoveries of the sciences. These trends, and the emphasis on internationalization that characterized them, necessitated the development of new structures and processes for discovering, disseminating, manipulating and managing access to information. This book analyses the dynamics of the emerging networks of individuals, organizations, technologies and publications by which means information was exchanged across and through all kinds of borders and boundaries in this period. It extends the frame within which historical discourse about information can take place by bringing together scholars not only from different disciplines but also from different national and linguistic backgrounds. As a result the volume offers new and surprising ways of looking at the historical period of the Belle Epoque. It will be of interest to scholars and students of information history and the emergence of the information society as well as to social and cultural historians concerned with the late 19th and early 20th century.