This collection sets out to define the ways in which ‘books and letters, telephone messages and tweets, tie a culture together and help define it by the communication networks it generates and sustains’; which it achieves admirably. It is a series of connected essays, which represent a fresh understanding of the field of book history. It also provides a rich discussion of a variety of case studies, beautifully illustrated with images of cuneiform stones, Second World War propaganda, mediaeval and fifteenth-century manuscripts (including a wonderful illustration of an elephant), and seventeenth-century images of witches, complete with accompanying cats.