How The Printing Press Changed The World

One might go as far as to say that the printing press is the most important invention between the invention of writing itself and the computer.  Although it is impossible to justify that statement to everyone's satisfaction, one can safely say that the printing press has been one of the most powerful inventions of the modern era.

Did you know…?

• The earliest documented evidence of printing dates back to the 2nd century when the ancient Chinese started using wooden blocks to transfer images of flowers on silk. The Chinese began printing on paper in the 7th century, and they created the Diamond Sutra, the first complete printed book, in 868.
   
• The Black Death, which spread to Western Europe thanks to expanded trade routes at the beginning of the renaissance, also greatly catalysed the invention of the printing press.
   
• It is no accident that the breakup of Europe's religious unity during the Protestant Reformation corresponded with the spread of printing; the difference between Martin Luther's successful Reformation and the Hussites' much more limited success was that Luther was armed with the printing press and knew how to use it with devastating effect.

China: The Technological Roots

  The invention of the printing press depended on the invention and refinement of paper in China over several centuries. The Chinese had developed "rag" paper, a cheap cloth-scrap and plant-fiber substitute for cumbersome bark and bamboo strips and for precious silk paper, by A.D. 105. Chinese prisoners passed a mature technology on to their Arab captors in the eighth century. The secrets of the craft that were revealed to Europeans in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were substantially the same techniques the Chinese had passed to the Arabs several centuries earlier.

Gutenberg Gave the European Society Just What It Needed at the Time

The Gutenberg Bibles were an important part of the reneissance movement

 Like any other invention, the printing press came along and had an impact when the right conditions existed at the right time and place. In the early 1450's rapid cultural change in Europe fueled a growing need for the rapid and cheap production of written documents. Johannes Gutenberg, a goldsmith and businessman from the mining town of Mainz in southern Germany, borrowed money to develop a technology that could address this serious economic bottleneck. From its European debut in the 12th century, paper gradually proved to be a viable alternative to the animal-skin vellum and parchment that had been the standard means of carrying written communication. Rag paper became increasingly cheap and plentiful while literacy expanded; the two processes accelerated, in part, by stimulating each other.

Gutenberg foresaw enormous profit-making potential for a printing press that used movable metal type. Despite their rapid growth in numbers, secular scribes simply could not keep up with the commercial demand for books.

Gutenberg developed his press by combining features of existing technologies: textile, papermaking Gutenberg Bibles which sold for 30 florins each, or about three years of a clerk's wage.
and wine presses. Perhaps his most significant innovation, however, was the efficient moulding and casting of movable metal type. Each letter was carved into the end of a steel punch which was then hammered into a copper blank. The copper impression was inserted into a mould and a molten alloy made of lead, antimony and bismuth was poured in. The alloy cooled quickly and the resulting reverse image of the letter attached to a lead base could be handled in minutes.  Gutenberg designed a Latin print Bible which became his signature work. He launched a run of some 200 two-volume

The immediate effect of the printing press was to multiply the output and cut the costs of books. It thus made information available to a much larger segment of the population who were, of course, eager for information of any variety. Libraries could now store greater quantities of information at much lower cost. Printing also facilitated the dissemination and preservation of knowledge in standardized form  - this was most important in the advance of science, technology and scholarship.
  

Print and Modern Thinking as We Know It

  The scientific revolution that would later challenge the entrenched "truths" espoused by the Church was also largely a consequence of print technology. The scientific principle of repeatability--the impartial verification of experimental results-- grew out of the rapid and broad dissemination of scientific insights and discoveries that print allowed. The production of scientific knowledge accelerated markedly. The easy exchange of ideas gave rise to a scientific community that functioned without geographical constraints.

This made it possible to systematize methodologies and to add sophistication to the development of rational thought. As readily available books helped expand the collective body of knowledge, indexes and cross-referencing emerged as ways of managing volumes of information and of making creative associations between seemingly unrelated ideas.

Of Course, It Could Not Stop There…

 

A number of dramatic technological innovations have since added a great deal of character and dimension to the place of print in culture. Linotype, a method of creating movable type by machine instead of by hand, was introduced in 1884 and marked a significant leap in production speed. The typewriter made the production and "look" of standardized print much more widely accessible.

The process of setting type continued to go through radical transformations with the development of photo-mechanical composition, cathode ray tubes and laser technologies. The Xerox machine made a means of disseminating print documents available to everyone. Word processing transformed editing and contributed dramatic new flexibility to the writing process. Computer printing has already moved through several stages of innovation, from the first daisy-wheel and dot matrix "impact" printers to common use of the non-impact printers: ink-jet, laser and thermal-transfer.