The invention of news (2014)

How Europe learned to trade in news before the newspaper existed. Pettegree follows manuscript newsletters, pamphlets and news singers from the late Middle Ages to the age of revolution, and shows that the first weekly papers, such as the one Johann Carolus printed in Strasbourg in 1605, struggled to compete with the pamphlets readers already loved. It is detailed and careful rather than racy, but the reward is seeing how much of the modern news habit, including the problem of whom to trust, was already in place.