Printing revolution
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| The phenomenon of the Printing Revolution can be approached from a quantitative perspective which has its focus on the printing output and the spread of the related technology. It can also be analysed in terms of how the wide circulation of information and ideas acted as an "[[agent of change]]" (''[[The Printing Press as an Agent of Change]]'') in Europe and global society in general. | The phenomenon of the Printing Revolution can be approached from a quantitative perspective which has its focus on the printing output and the spread of the related technology. It can also be analysed in terms of how the wide circulation of information and ideas acted as an "[[agent of change]]" (''[[The Printing Press as an Agent of Change]]'') in Europe and global society in general. | ||
| + | == The Printing Revolution == | ||
| + | The phenomenon of the Printing Revolution can be approached from a quantitative perspective which has its focus on the printing output and the spread of the related technology. It can also be analysed in terms of how the wide circulation of information and ideas acted as an "agent of change" ([[Elizabeth L. Eisenstein|Eisenstein]]) in Europe and global society in general. | ||
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| + | === Mass production and spread of printed books === | ||
| + | {{seealso|Global spread of the printing press|List of early modern newspapers}} | ||
| + | [[File:Printing3 Walk of Ideas Berlin.JPG|thumb|[[Walk of Ideas|"Modern Book Printing" sculpture]], commemorating its inventor Gutenberg on the occasion of the [[2006 World Cup]] in Germany]] | ||
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| + | The invention of mechanical movable type printing led to an explosion of printing activities in Europe within only a few decades. From a single print shop in [[Mainz]], Germany, printing had spread to no less than 236 cities in twelve European countries by the end of the 15th century.<ref name="Febvre, Lucien; Martin, Henri-Jean 1976 by Anderson, Benedict 1993, 58f.">Febvre, Lucien; Martin, Henri-Jean (1976): "The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing 1450-1800", London: New Left Books, quoted in: Anderson, Benedict: "Comunidades Imaginadas. Reflexiones sobre el origen y la difusión del nacionalismo", Fondo de cultura económica, Mexico 1993, ISBN 978-968-16-3867-2, pp. 58f.</ref> As early as 1480, there were printers active in 110 different places in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, England, [[Bohemia]] and Poland.<ref name="Febvre, Lucien; Martin, Henri-Jean 1976 by Anderson, Benedict 1993, 58f."/> From that time on, it is assumed that "the printed book was in universal use in Europe".<ref name="Febvre, Lucien; Martin, Henri-Jean 1976 by Anderson, Benedict 1993, 58f."/> | ||
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| + | In Italy, a center of early printing, print shops had been established in 77 cities and towns by 1500. At the end of the following century, 151 locations in Italy had seen at one time printing activities, with a total of nearly three thousand printers known to be active. Despite this proliferation, printing centres soon emerged; thus, one third of the Italian printers published in [[Venice]].<ref>{{harvnb|Borsa|1976|p=314}}; {{harvnb|Borsa|1977|p=166−169}}</ref> | ||
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| + | By 1500, the printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than twenty million volumes.<ref name="Febvre, Lucien; Martin, Henri-Jean 1976 by Anderson, Benedict 1993, 58f."/> In the following century, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies.<ref name="Febvre, Lucien; Martin, Henri-Jean 1976 by Anderson, Benedict 1993, 58f."/> | ||
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| + | European printing presses of around 1600 were capable of producing 3,600 impressions per workday.<ref name="Wolf 1974, 67f.">{{harvnb|Wolf|1974|pp=67f.}}: {{quote|From old price tables it can be deduced that the capacity of a printing press around 1600, assuming a fifteen-hour workday, was between 3,200 and 3,600 impressions per day.}}</ref> By comparison, [[Far Eastern]] printing, which did not use presses and was solely done by manually rubbing the back of the paper to the page,<ref>Needham 1965, p. 211: {{quote|The outstanding difference between the two ends of the Old World was the absence of screw-presses from China, but this is only another manifestation of the fact that this basic mechanism was foreign to that culture.}} {{harvnb|Widmann|1974|p=34, fn. 14}}: {{quote|In East Asia, both woodblock and movable type printing were manual reproduction techniques, that is hand printing.}} {{harvnb|Duchesne|2006|p=83}}; {{harvnb|Man|2002|pp=112−115}}: {{quote|Chinese paper was suitable only for calligraphy or block-printing; there were no screw-based presses in the east, because they were not wine-drinkers, didn’t have olives, and used other means to dry their paper.}} Encyclopædia Britannica 2006: "Printing": {{quote|The second necessary element was the concept of the printing press itself, an idea that had never been conceived in the Far East.}}</ref> did not exceed an output of forty pages per day.<ref name="Ch'on Hye-bong 1993, 12">Ch'on Hye-bong 1993, p. 12: {{quote|This method almost doubled the printing speed and produced more than 40 copies a day. Printing technology reached its peak at this point.}}</ref> | ||
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| + | The vast printing capacities meant that individual authors could now become true [[bestseller]]s: Of [[Erasmus]]'s work, at least 750,000 copies were sold during his lifetime alone (1469−1536).<ref>{{harvnb|Issawi|1980|pp=492}}</ref> In the early days of the Reformation, the revolutionary potential of bulk printing took princes and [[papacy]] alike by surprise. In the period from 1518 to 1524, the publication of books in Germany alone skyrocketed sevenfold; between 1518 and 1520, [[Martin Luther|Luther]]'s tracts were distributed in 300,000 printed copies.<ref>{{harvnb|Duchesne|2006|p=83}}</ref> | ||
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| + | The rapidity of typographical text production, as well as the sharp fall in unit costs, led to the issuing of the first [[newspaper]]s (see ''[[Relation (journal)|Relation]]'') which opened up an entirely new field for conveying up-to-date information to the public.<ref>{{harvnb|Weber|2006|pp=387f.}}</ref> | ||
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| + | A lasting legacy are the prized [[incunable]], surviving pre-16th century print works which are collected by many of the most prestigious libraries in Europe and North America.<ref>The British Library [http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/istc/index.html Incunabula Short Title Catalogue] gives 29,777 separate ''editions'' (not copies) as of 8th January 2008, which however includes some print items from the 16th century (retrieved 11.03.2010). According to Bettina Wagner: "Das Second-Life der Wiegendrucke. Die Inkunabelsammlung der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek", in: Griebel, Rolf; Ceynowa, Klaus (eds.): "Information, Innovation, Inspiration. 450 Jahre Bayerische Staatsbibliothek", K G Saur, München 2008, ISBN 978-3-598-11772-5, pp. 207–224 (207f.), the [[Incunabula Short Title Catalogue]] lists 28,107 editions published before 1501.</ref> | ||
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| + | === Circulation of information and ideas === | ||
| + | {{seealso|The Gutenberg Galaxy}} | ||
| + | [[File:Gutenberg press.jpg|thumb|Printer operating the screw press]] | ||
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| + | The printing press was also a factor in the establishment of a community of [[scientists]] who could easily communicate their discoveries through the establishment of widely disseminated scholarly journals, helping to bring on the [[scientific revolution]].{{Citation needed|date=November 2009}} Because of the printing press, [[author]]ship became more meaningful and profitable. It was suddenly important who had said or written what, and what the precise formulation and time of composition was. This allowed the exact citing of references, producing the rule, "One Author, one work (title), one piece of information" (Giesecke, 1989; 325). Before, the author was less important, since a copy of [[Aristotle]] made in Paris would not be exactly identical to one made in Bologna. For many works prior to the printing press, the name of the author has been entirely lost.{{Citation needed|date=November 2009}} | ||
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| + | Because the printing process ensured that the same information fell on the same pages, page numbering, tables of contents, and indices became common, though they previously had not been unknown.{{Citation needed|date=November 2009}} The process of reading also changed, gradually moving over several centuries from oral readings to silent, private reading.{{Citation needed|date=November 2009}} The wider availability of printed materials also led to a drastic rise in the adult literacy rate throughout Europe.{{Citation needed|date=November 2009}} | ||
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| + | The printing press was an important step towards the [[democratization of knowledge]].<ref>[http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,473529-2,00.html Malte Herwig, "Google's Total Library", ''Spiegel Online International'', Mar. 28, 2007.]</ref><ref>[http://www.ojr.org/ojr/technology/1057780670.php Howard Rheingold, "Moblogs Seen as a Crystal Ball for a New Era in Online Journalism", ''Online Journalism Review'', Jul. 9, 2009.]</ref> Within fifty or sixty years of the invention of the printing press, the entire classical canon had been reprinted and widely promulgated throughout Europe (Eisenstein, 1969; 52). Now that more people had access to knowledge both new and old, more people could discuss these works. Furthermore, now that book production was a more commercial enterprise, the first [[copyright]] laws{{Citation needed|date=May 2010}} were passed to protect what we now would call [[intellectual property]] rights{{Citation needed|date=May 2010}}. A second outgrowth of this popularization of knowledge was the decline of Latin as the language of most published works, to be replaced by the vernacular language of each area, increasing the variety of published works. The printed word also helped to unify and standardize the spelling and syntax of these vernaculars, in effect 'decreasing' their variability. This rise in importance of national languages as opposed to pan-European Latin is cited as one of the causes of the rise of [[nationalism]] in Europe. | ||
| == See also == | == See also == | ||
Revision as of 20:05, 30 October 2010
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The phenomenon of the Printing Revolution can be approached from a quantitative perspective which has its focus on the printing output and the spread of the related technology. It can also be analysed in terms of how the wide circulation of information and ideas acted as an "agent of change" (The Printing Press as an Agent of Change) in Europe and global society in general.
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The Printing Revolution
The phenomenon of the Printing Revolution can be approached from a quantitative perspective which has its focus on the printing output and the spread of the related technology. It can also be analysed in terms of how the wide circulation of information and ideas acted as an "agent of change" (Eisenstein) in Europe and global society in general.
Mass production and spread of printed books
Template:Seealso [[File:Printing3 Walk of Ideas Berlin.JPG|thumb|"Modern Book Printing" sculpture, commemorating its inventor Gutenberg on the occasion of the 2006 World Cup in Germany]]
The invention of mechanical movable type printing led to an explosion of printing activities in Europe within only a few decades. From a single print shop in Mainz, Germany, printing had spread to no less than 236 cities in twelve European countries by the end of the 15th century.<ref name="Febvre, Lucien; Martin, Henri-Jean 1976 by Anderson, Benedict 1993, 58f.">Febvre, Lucien; Martin, Henri-Jean (1976): "The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing 1450-1800", London: New Left Books, quoted in: Anderson, Benedict: "Comunidades Imaginadas. Reflexiones sobre el origen y la difusión del nacionalismo", Fondo de cultura económica, Mexico 1993, ISBN 978-968-16-3867-2, pp. 58f.</ref> As early as 1480, there were printers active in 110 different places in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, England, Bohemia and Poland.<ref name="Febvre, Lucien; Martin, Henri-Jean 1976 by Anderson, Benedict 1993, 58f."/> From that time on, it is assumed that "the printed book was in universal use in Europe".<ref name="Febvre, Lucien; Martin, Henri-Jean 1976 by Anderson, Benedict 1993, 58f."/>
In Italy, a center of early printing, print shops had been established in 77 cities and towns by 1500. At the end of the following century, 151 locations in Italy had seen at one time printing activities, with a total of nearly three thousand printers known to be active. Despite this proliferation, printing centres soon emerged; thus, one third of the Italian printers published in Venice.<ref>Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb</ref>
By 1500, the printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than twenty million volumes.<ref name="Febvre, Lucien; Martin, Henri-Jean 1976 by Anderson, Benedict 1993, 58f."/> In the following century, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies.<ref name="Febvre, Lucien; Martin, Henri-Jean 1976 by Anderson, Benedict 1993, 58f."/>
European printing presses of around 1600 were capable of producing 3,600 impressions per workday.<ref name="Wolf 1974, 67f.">Template:Harvnb: Template:Quote</ref> By comparison, Far Eastern printing, which did not use presses and was solely done by manually rubbing the back of the paper to the page,<ref>Needham 1965, p. 211: Template:Quote Template:Harvnb: Template:Quote Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb: Template:Quote Encyclopædia Britannica 2006: "Printing": Template:Quote</ref> did not exceed an output of forty pages per day.<ref name="Ch'on Hye-bong 1993, 12">Ch'on Hye-bong 1993, p. 12: Template:Quote</ref>
The vast printing capacities meant that individual authors could now become true bestsellers: Of Erasmus's work, at least 750,000 copies were sold during his lifetime alone (1469−1536).<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> In the early days of the Reformation, the revolutionary potential of bulk printing took princes and papacy alike by surprise. In the period from 1518 to 1524, the publication of books in Germany alone skyrocketed sevenfold; between 1518 and 1520, Luther's tracts were distributed in 300,000 printed copies.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref>
The rapidity of typographical text production, as well as the sharp fall in unit costs, led to the issuing of the first newspapers (see Relation) which opened up an entirely new field for conveying up-to-date information to the public.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref>
A lasting legacy are the prized incunable, surviving pre-16th century print works which are collected by many of the most prestigious libraries in Europe and North America.<ref>The British Library Incunabula Short Title Catalogue gives 29,777 separate editions (not copies) as of 8th January 2008, which however includes some print items from the 16th century (retrieved 11.03.2010). According to Bettina Wagner: "Das Second-Life der Wiegendrucke. Die Inkunabelsammlung der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek", in: Griebel, Rolf; Ceynowa, Klaus (eds.): "Information, Innovation, Inspiration. 450 Jahre Bayerische Staatsbibliothek", K G Saur, München 2008, ISBN 978-3-598-11772-5, pp. 207–224 (207f.), the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue lists 28,107 editions published before 1501.</ref>
Circulation of information and ideas
Template:Seealso thumb|Printer operating the screw press
The printing press was also a factor in the establishment of a community of scientists who could easily communicate their discoveries through the establishment of widely disseminated scholarly journals, helping to bring on the scientific revolution.Template:Citation needed Because of the printing press, authorship became more meaningful and profitable. It was suddenly important who had said or written what, and what the precise formulation and time of composition was. This allowed the exact citing of references, producing the rule, "One Author, one work (title), one piece of information" (Giesecke, 1989; 325). Before, the author was less important, since a copy of Aristotle made in Paris would not be exactly identical to one made in Bologna. For many works prior to the printing press, the name of the author has been entirely lost.Template:Citation needed
Because the printing process ensured that the same information fell on the same pages, page numbering, tables of contents, and indices became common, though they previously had not been unknown.Template:Citation needed The process of reading also changed, gradually moving over several centuries from oral readings to silent, private reading.Template:Citation needed The wider availability of printed materials also led to a drastic rise in the adult literacy rate throughout Europe.Template:Citation needed
The printing press was an important step towards the democratization of knowledge.<ref>Malte Herwig, "Google's Total Library", Spiegel Online International, Mar. 28, 2007.</ref><ref>Howard Rheingold, "Moblogs Seen as a Crystal Ball for a New Era in Online Journalism", Online Journalism Review, Jul. 9, 2009.</ref> Within fifty or sixty years of the invention of the printing press, the entire classical canon had been reprinted and widely promulgated throughout Europe (Eisenstein, 1969; 52). Now that more people had access to knowledge both new and old, more people could discuss these works. Furthermore, now that book production was a more commercial enterprise, the first copyright lawsTemplate:Citation needed were passed to protect what we now would call intellectual property rightsTemplate:Citation needed. A second outgrowth of this popularization of knowledge was the decline of Latin as the language of most published works, to be replaced by the vernacular language of each area, increasing the variety of published works. The printed word also helped to unify and standardize the spelling and syntax of these vernaculars, in effect 'decreasing' their variability. This rise in importance of national languages as opposed to pan-European Latin is cited as one of the causes of the rise of nationalism in Europe.
See also
