Peter Burke follows up his magisterial Social History of Knowledge , picking up where the first volume left off around 1750 at the publication of the French Encyclopédie and following the story through to Wikipedia. Like the previous volume, it offers a social history (or a retrospective sociology of knowledge) in the sense that it focuses not on individuals but on groups, institutions, collective practices and general trends. The book is divided into 3 parts. The first argues that activities which appear to be timeless - gathering knowledge, analysing, disseminating and employing it - are in fact time-bound and take different forms in different periods and places. The second part tries to counter the tendency to write a triumphalist history of the 'growth' of knowledge by discussing losses of knowledge and the price of specialization. The third part offers geographical, sociological and chronological overviews, contrasting the experience of centres and peripheries and arguing that each of the main trends of the period - professionalization, secularization, nationalization, democratization, etc, coexisted and interacted with its opposite. As ever, Peter Burke presents a breath-taking range of scholarship in prose of exemplary clarity and accessibility. This highly anticipated second volume will be essential reading across the humanities and social sciences.

彼得·伯克（Peter Burke），英国著名历史学家。曾执教萨塞克斯大学、剑桥大学，现为剑桥大学文化史荣休教授及伊曼纽尔学院研究员。伯克的研究专长为西方史学思想和欧洲文化史，致力于史学与社会科学理论的沟通，探索文化史写作的新领地，是当代最著名的新文化史学家之一。著作宏富，包括《语言的文化史——近代早期欧洲的语言和共同体》、《法国史学革命》、《历史写作的新视野》、《20世纪的历史与历史学家》、《什么是文化史》、《文化史的风景》、《图像证史》、《意大利文艺复兴》等数十种，并被译成多重语言出版。