The practice or business of buying and selling books, especially rare or antiquarian ones.
From Greek biblio- (book) + -pole (seller) + -ism (practice/system). The term emerged in the 17th century to describe the growing trade in books as commodities.
Bibliopolism transformed books from purely intellectual objects into tradeable goods—this shift directly enabled the modern book market and made knowledge physically portable and collectible in ways that changed how civilization preserves and values information.
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