For those who would seek to influence others, the distribution of ideas is paramount. Similarly, for those holding ambition to secrete knowledge for reasons of authority, or to protect the fruits of intellectual labour for reasons of profit or ethical concern, dissemination is key. Certainly before, but more importantly since, the Gutenberg Bible, the predicament of the power of knowledge has lain not with its generation but with the control of its dispersion.

This new volume in the Occasional Table series of critical anthologies focusses attention on the act of distribution as a subject for serious creative consideration and one of great social and economic importance. Contributors from a variety of backgrounds paint a big picture that embraces the actions of the individual along-side the workings of global markets. From the attention-seeking impulse of the poseur to the democratisation of art and knowledge through books, digital networks, pop music and self-organised libraries, and to the question of what can be known and by whom, the urge to disseminate is explored here as an elemental phenomenon of our time.