Recent developments in the cultural history of written culture have omitted the specificity of practices relative to writing that were anchored in colonial contexts. The circulation of manuscripts and books between different continents played a key role in the process of the first globalization from the 16th century onwards. While the European colonial organization mobilised several forms of writing and tried to control the circulation and reception of this material, the very function and meaning of written culture was recreated by the introduction and appropriation of written culture into societies without alphabetical forms of writing. This book explores the extent to which the control over the materiality of writing has shaped the numerous and complex processes of cultural exchange during the early modern period.

Adrien Delmas, Ph.D. (2010) in History, cole des Hautes tudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris, is currently reseacher at the European University Institute, Florence. He has published on travel wriling in the early modern world, including voyages de l'crit. Culture crite et expansion europene l'poque moderne, cssais surla Compagnie Hollandaise des Indes Orientates (Honor Champion, 2012). Nigel Penn, Ph.D. (1995) in History, University of Cape Town, is Professor of History at the University of Cape Town. He has published extensively in early Cape colonial history including The forgotten Frontier (University of Ohio Press, 2005).