did graduate training at Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, and took his Ph.D. from Indiana University. He has written Popular Culture and the Public Sphere in the Rhineland, 1800-1850 (2007) and Capitalism, Politics, and Railroads in Prussia, 1830-1870 (1998). He has co-edited Vormärzliche Verleger zwischen Zensur, Buchmarkt und Lesepublikum (2023) as well as Perspectives from the Past: Sources in Western Civilization (1998; 7th ed., 2020). In addition, he published over three dozen essays on modern European history. He is the former president of the Central European History Society and currently sits on the board of editors for the Journal of Modern History.
Brophy applied the "Page 99 Test" to his latest book, Print Markets and Political Dissent in Central Europe: Publishers in Central Europe, 1800-1870, and reported the following:
Page 99 is indeed an instructive page for readers. To understand how forbidden political literature circulated in Germany and Austria, the book follows three hundred publishers who created print markets that advocated constitutionalism and rights-bearing citizenship. How publishers printed and sold banned literature between Napoleon and German unification was no easy matter. Censorship and surveillance were watchwords of the political order under Prussia and Austria. The underground book trade therefore depended on the trust of other booksellers and their commercial networks to evade state control and circulate illegal print matter. This page showcases one of the book trade’s leading political publishers: Heinrich Hoff. A committed democrat, he typifies his profession’s savvy to combine profit with political principles. The revenues from his balanced list of print matter – newspapers, novels, history, and scientific treaties – enabled him to speculate on illicit political pamphlets and books. Hoff deftly gamed the censorship system and brought banned print to market. His civic courage is noteworthy but so is his goal to extend democratic ideas to common readers. Using formats of popular and middlebrow literature (e.g., magazines, almanacs, calendars), he condensed and simplified issues of freedom and political representation for social groups not privy to elite political philosophy. Using an expanding publishing landscape and the clandestine exchange networks of bookdealers, Hoff and other publishers promoted political literacy for the dawning era of mass politics. Hoff’s end is poignant. During the Revolution of 1848, Baden’s government arrested and imprisoned him. Having fled to the US, he died in 1852 penniless in New York City. These citizens of print and their role in creating a democratic public sphere beckon our attention.Learn more about Print Markets and Political Dissent in Central Europe at the Oxford University Press website.
--Marshal Zeringue
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