Printing+Press

How the Printing Press Changed the World
Several hundred years before the common belief of the invention of the printing press, a chinese man named [|Bi Sheng] carved the earliest recorded form of moveable type in the world. However, it took 400 years and a conglomeration of existent technology to come together under the auspices of Johannes Guttenberg before the world would change forever. Guttenburg, aided by timing and the usage of a language that, unlike chinese with its 10,000 plus characters, only had 30 (German) is credited with being the father of the modern day printing press. His achievement changed the way we stored and communicated information forever.

His first set of [|books], an illustrated bible with a production of 200 published in 1455, was sold out before he even finished the first copy. Penniless upon his death, Guttenburg set in motion a new world where the common masses could have a written word in a cheap and easy form. Alongside this, the invention of a small, pocket-sized book, the world had a means to easily create, transport and share knowledge in ways only afforded to the wealthy before.

Until this time, in the western world, books were relegated to being hand produced, mostly by Benedictine and Cassiodorian monks. These [|scribes] were directed to live their lives through prayer and work with the aim of perpetuating the Christian gospels. Their work was seems a prayer in and of itself and resulted in beautiful texts, but rarely seem by the public. In fact, it was often the case that these texts were chained to a pulpit, preventing common people from seeing the book let alone read it.

With the invention of a press to mass produce texts, books became affordable and society set a course towards literacy that the world had never seen. People did not instantly learn how to read, but with the advent of the [|Frankfort Book Faire] and traveling raconteurs who would read to the public, knowledge, communication history and entertainment all hold their renaissance roots to this invention.

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