Volume 1 uses archive-based case studies of print culture in a number of countries around the world to examine the position of the book as a national concept. Among the questions raised by the contributors is whether the book enshrines the soul of a nation, or is instead a means by which nations talk to one another, sharing ideas, technologies, and texts.

Volume 2 concentrates on one of the world's oldest, and most buoyant, book cultures: South Asia. It examines the transition from manuscript to hand press, orality and performance, scripts and nationalism, libraries and copyright, and the recent international vogue for Europhone writers from the region.