ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

How Practical Can Knowledge Be? Insights into the World of How-To

• In Event: New Perspectives on the Circulation of Knowledge

English Abstract

How-to questions keep societies running; they help us to shape and perpetuate civilisation. Long before the digital tutorial, printed guides, instructional manuals, and recipe books were the dominant media for transmitting practical knowledge. Scholars have described the sixteenth century as the “Age of How-To” (William Eamon) – a period when advice literature flooded the market in both ephemeral pamphlets and substantial tomes. These early modern “YouTube tutorials” reveal a vibrant culture of doing, experimenting, and sharing know-how.
This paper presents results from the ongoing collaborative project Take Me and Make It Happen! How-to Books in Glasgow and Wolfenbüttel (funded by the AHRC and DFG), directed by Stefan Laube and Laurence Grove (see www.howtobook.eu). Drawing on the Ferguson Collection at the University of Glasgow and the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, the project explores how early modern Europeans sought to acquire practical skills from books. What defines a “how-to” book? Why did such texts enjoy such wide appeal? And how did readers translate written instruction into embodied practice?
Particular attention is given to the transcultural dimension of practical knowledge: the transfer of techniques and artefacts from indigenous cultures into Western life. Everyday objects such as anoraks, hammocks, kayaks, moccasins, or the boomerang testify to global exchanges of know-how that challenge Eurocentric narratives of innovation. By tracing these plural trajectories of practical knowledge, the paper reconsiders how “useful” knowledge shaped – and continues to shape – our understanding of science, technology, and culture.

Author

• Stefan Laube, Humbodt Univeristy Berlin