The Opened Letter: Networking in the Early Modern British World
The Opened Letter: Networking in the Early Modern British World
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公开信：近代早期英国世界的网络
DOI：
10.9783/9780812290189
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发表时间：
2014
影响因子：
0.8
通讯作者：
Lindsay O'Neill
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Lindsay O'Neill
到18世纪初，大英帝国的迅速扩张产生了一个技术问题：通信和网络变得越来越重要，但更难维持。随着殖民领地和人口的增长，以及越来越多的人在世界各地流动，国内外的英国人都需要一种持续可靠的沟通方式来开展业务、解决智力问题、讨论家庭事务、管理遥远的房产和交换新闻。随着面对面的交流变得越来越断断续续，早期现代英国的男人和女人都依赖于书信。在这封公开信中，历史学家林赛·奥尼尔探讨了通过写信在英格兰、爱尔兰和殖民地的精英成员中建立网络的重要性和影响。将广泛的档案研究与社交网络数字技术相结合，这封公开信捕捉到了创造了一个充满活力、广阔和精细的交流网络的动态联系。作者查阅了1万多封信件，这些人物包括弗吉尼亚州的种植园主威廉·伯德一世和他的儿子威廉·伯德二世；盎格鲁-爱尔兰贵族约翰·珀西瓦尔；新上任的昌多斯公爵詹姆斯·布里奇斯和他的妻子卡桑德拉·布里奇斯；以及皇家学会主席汉斯·斯隆爵士和他的同事彼得·柯林森。她还挖掘了尼古拉斯·布伦德尔(Nicholas Blundell)和詹姆斯·艾略特(James Eliot)等人的信件，前者是兰开夏贵族的天主教成员，后者是伦敦商人和狂热的贵格会教徒。这封打开的信重新组装并呈现了由不同的书信作者群体构建的重要的个人和相互关联的书信网。这些早期的社交网络照亮了英国世界的结构、社会和地理运作，因为这个国家正在成为一个占主导地位的全球强国。
By the early eighteenth century, the rapid expansion of the British empire had created a technological problem: communication and networking became increasingly vital yet harder to maintain. As colonial possessions and populations grew and more individuals moved around the globe, Britons both at home and abroad required a constant and reliable means of communication to conduct business, plumb intellectual concerns, discuss family matters, run distant estates, and exchange news. As face-to-face communication became more intermittent, men and women across the early modern British world relied on letters. In The Opened Letter, historian Lindsay O'Neill explores the importance and impact of networking via letter-writing among the members of the elite from England, Ireland, and the colonies. Combining extensive archival research with social network digital technology, The Opened Letter captures the dynamic associations that created a vibrant, expansive, and elaborate web of communication. The author examined more than 10,000 letters produced by such figures as Virginia planters William Byrd I and his son William Byrd II; the Anglo-Irish nobleman John Perceval; the newly minted Duke of Chandos, James Brydges, and his wife Cassandra Brydges; and Sir Hans Sloane, the president of the Royal Society, and his colleague Peter Collinson. She also mined letters from the likes of Nicholas Blundell, a Catholic member of the Lancashire gentry, and James Eliot, a London merchant and ardent Quaker. The Opened Letter reassembles and presents the vital individual and interlocking epistolary webs constructed by disparate groups of letter writers. These early social networks illuminate the structural, social, and geographic workings of the British world as the nation was becoming a dominant global power.