Augsburg's "Allgemeine Zeitung" was a product of the famous Cotta publishing house of Stuttgart. As an economic enterprise it had to ensure its profitability while at the same time living up to the high standards of reporting it had set itself. The restrictions on the free expression of opinion operative in the Vormärz period made it imperative for the editiors to cooperate with the censorship authorities. This study breaks new ground in showing just how close the contracts between editors and censors actually were. The book combines a social history of the censors with a description of the everyday activity of a team of editors caught up between censorship and the aim of producing a 'liberal' newspaper. For the first time the links are traced between the economic situation of the Augsburg periodical - its sales figures, distribution structure and business profile - and the press policy of the Bavaria authorities and the development this underwent in the years 1815 to 1848.