4 - The Paper of Politics and the Politics of Paper

Summary

Peter Burke has suggested that the “paper state” was an invention of early modern Europe. It was a function chiefly of the desire of early modern sovereigns for information, about the people they ruled, the competitors they faced, and the events they lived through. With the widespread adoption of paper as a container for that information, the institutions of state in Europe were increasingly mediated through the circulation of paper instruments, chiefly the correspondence of the agents of state power: diplomats, governors, intendants, and other officials who embodied and projected state authority. One of the most evident measurables of the much-talked-about “rise of the modern state” was the state’s consumption of paper.