For those familiar with Stephen Koss's two-volume tome, The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain (1981), the sight of this 184-page offering is somewhat appealing. In this slim volume, Black attempts to chart the history of the English newspaper from the introduction of mechanical movable type printing in fifteenth-century Europe to the present day. He does so with a view “to consider today the state of the English press and, with that, its history” (1). But for those familiar with Koss and the ever-expanding body of more recent scholarship, Black's compact offering disappoints.

Politics, which is at the fore of Koss's study, occupies a more problematic place in Black's work. This is particularly true of the later chapters. Black constructs a linear relationship in which press development is driven or influenced by political change. He is comfortable with the idea that politicians, then and now, deem(ed) the press to be important, agreeing to interviews and penning opinion pieces. Subsidies and formal mechanisms of influence, including press briefings, are described. According to Black, however, none of this should be taken as evidence of direct impact.

The infamous political ambitions of the twentieth century press barons are examined. Close, and at times very cozy, alliances are noted: Lord Northcliffe's on-off relationship with David Lloyd George; Neil Kinnock's deal with the Daily Mirror; Rupert Murdoch's connections to Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair; and Theresa May's more recent involvement with Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre. Allegedly indicative of politicians’ fixation with the press and need to secure media approval “in part because they were there” even these links are apparently not instances of direct political impact (143). Similarly separating intent from outcome, Black asserts that newspapers today, while in decline, “continue to have influence, or to be used as if they do” (159).

Beyond politicians, Black is keener still to minimize the political influence of the press. He scrutinizes the concept of the public sphere and proposes an alternative multiple spheres model. He recognizes the importance of the press as the primary source of information and key means for readers to structure the world around them. He examines how the press became an important link between the expanding electorate and elite. He does not, however, ascribe to these functions any real power. Black rejects, for example, the popular belief that it was the “Sun Wot Won It” at the 1992 General Election. He claims the theory gained traction because critics of capitalism and the defeated Labour party needed someone else to blame. He attributes the result to the appeal of conservatism and the ability of voters to “understand their own interests” (142).

Reader agency should, of course, not be overlooked. If, however, an individual's understanding of their interests rests on the mediation of the world around them through the press, does this not give the newspaper some level of influence? Black does not tackle this tension in his argument. He does not engage meaningfully with readership theories. Despite observing in his introduction that, while readers may open a paper for the horoscope or the horse races, they may end up consuming other forms of content, this is forgotten in the chapters that follow.

Black subscribes to the theory that it is the medium, not its message, that matters. While explicitly stated only in the conclusion, it is a thesis he adheres to throughout. He documents the rapid growth of publications after the collapse of the Star Chamber in 1641, for example, but does not consider their influence on the events that followed. Black takes a similarly blinkered approach to the other episodes discussed in text and the many more he omits. Possibly blurred lines between press and propaganda are largely ignored.

Affording such power to print does not fit with Black's overarching view of the press as a commercial enterprise. Black argues that after the lapse of the Licensing Act in 1695, the press became an attractive, if not always lucrative, investment. As limitations, particularly taxes, were removed and technology improved, news became an industry driven by sales and advertising. By the second half of the nineteenth century, a cheap press was possible and profitable. Black examines the accompanying changes in scale, content, and format. These are important observations, but crucially lack nuance.

Revealingly, Black dismisses criticism of the press barons whose ascendancy is associated with this period of rapid expansion. He argues that concentration of ownership was “necessary in order to provide the economies of scale appropriate for a mass readership and also to hold political parties to scrutiny” (123). Citing their apparent political breadth, independence from party interest and again attributing ballot box choices to the appeal of conservatism, the unambiguous political motives of proprietors do not trouble Black. He justifies concentration of ownership and dismisses concerns about foreign investment today in the same economic terms. Black's critique of the dominant news position held by the taxpayer-funded BBC should also perhaps be read in this light. Here, complaints of liberal bias are uncritically referenced while charges of over-representation of the right wing are markedly absent.

Concentrating on commercial potential, Black is unperturbed by the rise of new media platforms. He briefly acknowledges concerns about accuracy and authenticity but neither shares nor dissects them in any great detail. For Black, it is not targeted content, disinformation, foreign manipulation, or partisanship that threatens the future of the press, but the election of a radical Labour government intent on implementing “draconian” measures of regulation. The resultant “muzzled” press could not “act as an effective defender of freedom” or maintain readerships (180). This is not out of line with Black's view of the local press as a means to call power into account or emphasis on the importance of critical investigative journalism for exposing scandals. These ideas do, however, seem to jar with his conception of the press as largely devoid of direct political impact.

The intended audience for this book is unclear. If it is the curious general reader, Black's tendency to assume knowledge—whether of the John Wilkes and North Briton affair of the 1760s or of James Callaghan's “winter of discontent” of 1978–79—is prohibitive. If it is the academic looking to use “one of the most vital tools” to understand the society that they study, the lack of references and, at times, scant evidence and failures in critical analysis are baffling (175). For either category, the book is not particularly readable. Black repeatedly jumps from one idea to another and back again. Threads of arguments, subtleties, and trends are lost. Black does, however, demonstrate an impressive breadth of chronological and geographical knowledge and provides an important integrated analysis of the national and provincial press.