Randolph C. Head is Professor of History at the University of California, Riverside. He has published extensively on democracy, religious conflict, and knowledge systems in early modern Europe, particularly Switzerland. His publications, which were recognized by the Max Geilinger Prize in 2017, include Early Modern Democracy in the Grisons (Cambridge, 1995), Jenatsch's Axe (2008), and A Concise History of Switzerland (with Clive Church, Cambridge, 2013).

Foreword: writing the history of archives; 1. Introduction: records, tools and archives in Europe to 1700; 2. Archival history: literature and outlook; Part I. The Work of Records (1200- ): 3. Probative objects and Scholastic tools in the High Middle Ages; 4. A late medieval chancellery and its books: Lisbon, 1460-1560; 5. Keeping and organizing information from the Middle Ages to the sixteenth century; 6. Information management in early modern Innsbruck, 1490-1530; Part II. The Challenges of Accumulation (1400- ): 7. The accumulation of records and the evolution of inventories; 8. Early modern inventories: Habsburg Austria and Würzburg; 9. Classification: the architecture of knowledge and the placement of records; 10. The formal logic of classification: topography and taxonomy in Swiss urban records, 1500-1700; Part III. Comprehensive Visions and Differentiating Practices (1550- ): 11. Evolving expectations about archives, 1540-1650; 12. Registries: tracking the business of governance; Part IV. Rethinking Records and State Archives (1550- ): 13. Understanding records: new perspectives and new readings after 1550; 14. New disciplines of authenticity and authority: Mabillon's diplomatics and the ius archive; 15. Conclusion: the era of chancellery books and beyond.