Reading is part of an ongoing discourse about reading objects, reading behaviour and functions and impacts of reading in society. Actually this becomes evident in the discussions about the PISA-Surveys, in history this can be seen in the different attributions to reading for personal and social identities. The transformations of reading and readers by new technologies or social and cultural developments are aspects of comprehensive historical perceptions which are reflected in different social practices of reading. The characteristics of the reading discourse are illustrated in this volume by examining the objects and representations of reading as well as the arguments for or against reading from medieval to present times. The collection of contributions develop a discourse-analytical historiography in a heterogenous field of research and create on the one hand an historical overview and on the other hand an interdisciplinary examination of the social and cultural phenomenons associated with reading.