Rumor in Multiples

False reports did not begin with digital platforms. Printers, editors, preachers, political agents, and readers long shaped information through selection, repetition, sensational claims, and strategic silence. Moving from the age of Gutenberg through expanding print markets, this account examines how credibility was built and broken before electronic media. It considers literacy, distribution, commercial incentives, partisan publishing, and the uneven reach of censorship. By placing modern anxieties within a longer history, the book offers a sharper understanding of why communication revolutions create both wider access to knowledge and new opportunities for deception.