Origins of Democratic Culture

"This innovative work of historical sociology locates the origins of modern democratic discourse in the emergent culture of printing in early-modern England. For David Zaret, the key to the rise of a democratic public sphere was the impact of this culture of printing on the secrecy and privilege that shrouded political decisions in seventeenth-century England.

Zaret explores the unanticipated liberating effects of printing and printed communication in transforming the world of political secrecy into a culture of open discourse and eventually a politics of public opinion."--BOOK JACKET.