James Brophy
Photo: Annette Hornischer

Francis H. Squire Professor of History, University of Delaware

Nina Maria Gorrissen Fellow in History - Class of Fall 2013

James Brophy is the Francis H. Squire Professor of History at the University of Delaware. A historian of modern Europe, his research focuses on the social, economic, and political history of nineteenth-century Germany. Among his books are Capitalism, Politics, and Railroads in Prussia, 1830-1870 (Ohio State, 1998), Popular Culture and the Public Sphere in the Rhineland, 1800-1850 (Cambridge, 2007), awarded a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Book in 2008, and the co-edited two-volume anthology, Perspectives from the Past: Sources in Western Civilization (fifth edition; Norton, 2012). Brophy has written over two dozen essays for anthologies, surveys, and journals, including Past and Present, Journal of Modern History, and Central European History.

Brophy received his bachelor’s degree from Vassar College, completed graduate training at Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, and earned his PhD from Indiana University (1991). He is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment of the Humanities, Fulbright Commission, German Academic Exchange Service, American Philosophical Society, and the International Research Exchange Program.

Project Description

Markets of Knowledge: Publishers and Politics in Central Europe, 1770-1870

During his time at the American Academy, Brophy pursued a project called “Markets of Knowledge: Publishers and Politics in Central Europe, 1770-1870,” which links the business of print to broader arenas of political communication. His work encompasses both European and American dimensions, exploring the presence of the German press across the Atlantic. Whereas previous scholars have emphasized the formation of a “German cultural nation,” Brophy argues for a more international framework for understanding publishers’ goals and decisions. In particular, his study reconstructs the markets, networks, and personalities that bridged the political cultures of Central Europe and the Atlantic world. Based on thirty individual publishing careers spanning two generations, “Markets of Knowledge” describes the myriad transactions involved in forging the era’s transatlantic book market, from credit-based negotiations and the creation of local bookshops, libraries, and reading societies, to how publishers worked as cultural brokers and political actors in nineteenth-century public life. Brophy also addresses the issue of censorship at local, regional, and national levels, asking whether it was severe enough to insulate German reading communities from other print markets. Finally, his research reveals how book producers, who were also prominent local businessmen, influenced and maneuvered local and regional censorship policies of the loosely federated Deutscher Bund.

Back To Top