The Emancipation of Writing

The Emancipation of Writing is the first study of writing in its connection to bureaucracy, citizenship, and the state in Germany. Stitching together micro- and macro-level analysis, it reconstructs the vibrant, textually saturated civic culture of the German southwest in the aftermath of the French Revolution and Napoleon's invasions. Ian F. McNeely reveals that Germany's notoriously oppressive bureaucracy, when viewed through the writing practices that were its lifeblood, could also function as a site of citizenship. Citizens, acting under the mediation of powerful local scribes, practiced their freedoms in written engagements with the state. Their communications laid the basis for civil society, showing how social networks commonly associated with the free market, the free press, and the voluntary association could also take root in powerful state institutions.

The Emancipation of Writing is the first study of writing in its connection to bureaucracy, citizenship, and the state in Germany. Stitching together micro- and macro-level analysis, it reconstructs the vibrant, textually saturated civic culture of the German southwest in the aftermath of the French Revolution and Napoleon's invasions. Ian F. McNeely reveals that Germany's notoriously oppressive bureaucracy, when viewed through the writing practices that were its lifeblood, could also function as a site of citizenship. Citizens, acting under the mediation of powerful local scribes, practiced their freedoms in written engagements with the state. Their communications laid the basis for civil society, showing how social networks commonly associated with the free market, the free press, and the voluntary association could also take root in powerful state institutions.

Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction

PART I
OFFICIAL POWER AND THE PAPER TRAIL

Chapter 1 The civic landscape
Political culture
Social geography
Mediating institutions

Chapter 2 The tutelage of the scribes
The formality of daily life
Manipulations of authority
Crisis in the writing trades

Chapter 3 The Black Forest Cahier
Political ventriloquism
Networks of collegiality
Provincials and cosmopolitans
A breach of protocol

Chapter 4 Constitutional fetishism
Litigating local conflict
Democratization by codification
Heinrich Bolley v. the king
Epilogue

PART II
INSCRIBING A SPACE OF FREEDOM

Chapter 5 Transcending "textual serfdom"
Administrative colonization
Tutelage on a new terrain
The reconstitution of politics

Chapter 6 Reading, writing, and reform
Edicts: the letter of the law
Sociography and enforcement
Knowledge entrepreneurs

Chapter 7 Cataloging the social world
Statistical topography
Patriotic science
Encyclopedism as local passion

Chapter 8 The intelligence gazettes
Popular Enlightenment
Reaching the citizenry
The market for information

Conclusion
Abbreviations
Glossary
Sources
Notes