Print Culture and the

Modern World
16th Century Print
 The earliest kind of print technology was developed in
China, Japan and Korea. This was a system of hand
printing.

The First From AD 594 onwards, books in China were printed by

Printed rubbing paper – also invented there – against the inked

surface of woodblocks. As both sides of the thin, porous
sheet could not be printed, the traditional Chinese
Books ‘accordion book’ was folded and stitched at the side.

Superbly skilled craftsmen could duplicate, with

remarkable accuracy, the beauty of calligraphy
 Print in China
• The imperial state in China was, for a very long time, the major producer of printed material.
• China possessed a huge bureaucratic system which recruited its personnel through civil
service examinations. Textbooks for this examination were printed in vast numbers under the
sponsorship of the imperial state.
• From the 16th century, the number of examination candidates went up and that increased
the volume of print.
• By the 17th century, as urban culture bloomed in China, the uses of print diversified. Print
was no longer used just by scholar-officials. Merchants used print in their everyday life, as
they collected trade information. Reading increasingly became a leisure activity.
• The new readership and women as readers and publishers
• Western printing techniques and mechanical presses were imported in the late nineteenth
century.
• Shanghai became the hub of the new print culture, catering to the Western-style schools
• From hand printing there was now a gradual shift to mechanical printing.
Print in Japan
• Buddhist missionaries from China introduced hand-printing technology into Japan
around AD 768-770.
• The oldest Japanese book, printed in AD 868, is the Buddhist Diamond Sutra,
containing six sheets of text and woodcut illustrations.
• Pictures were printed on textiles, playing cards and paper money.
• In medieval Japan, poets and prose writers were regularly published, and books were
cheap and abundant.
• Printing of visual material led to interesting publishing practices. In the late
eighteenth century, in the flourishing urban circles at Edo (later to be known as
Tokyo), illustrated collections of paintings depicted an elegant urban culture,
involving artists, courtesans, and teahouse gatherings.
• Libraries and bookstores were packed with hand-printed material of various types
 • In the 11th century, Chinese paper reached Europe via
the Silk route.
• In 1295, Marco Polo, a great explorer, returned to Italy
after many years of exploration in China. China already
had the technology of woodblock printing. Marco Polo
brought this knowledge back with him.
Print Comes • Now Italians began producing books with woodblocks,
to Europe and soon the technology spread to other parts of
Europe.
• Luxury editions were still handwritten on very expensive
vellum, meant for aristocratic circles and rich monastic
libraries which scoffed at printed books as cheap
vulgarities.
 Handwritten Manuscripts and its
limitations
• The demand for books increased, Book fairs were held at different
places.
• The production of handwritten manuscripts could not satisfy the
ever-increasing demand for books. Copying was an expensive,
laborious and time-consuming business. Manuscripts were fragile,
awkward to handle, and could not be carried around or read easily.
Their circulation therefore remained limited.
• With the growing demand for books, woodblock printing gradually
became more and more popular. By the early 15th century,
woodblocks were being widely used in Europe to print textiles,
playing cards, and religious pictures with simple, brief texts.
Gutenberg and the Printing Press
•Gutenberg was the son of a merchant and grew up
on a large agricultural estate. From his childhood he
had seen wine and olive presses. Subsequently, he
learnt the art of polishing stones, became a master
goldsmith, and also acquired the expertise to create
lead moulds used for making trinkets. Drawing on this
knowledge, Gutenberg adapted existing technology to
design his innovation. The olive press provided the
model for the printing press, and moulds were used
for casting the metal types for the letters of the
alphabet. By 1448, Gutenberg perfected the system.
The first book he printed was the Bible. About 180
copies were printed and it took three years to
produce them. By the standards of the time this was
fast production.
The new technology did not entirely
displace the existing art of producing
books by hand.
• Printed books at first closely resembled the written
manuscripts in appearance and layout.
• The metal letters imitated the ornamental
handwritten styles. Borders were illuminated by
hand with foliage and other patterns, and
illustrations were painted.
• In the books printed for the rich, space for
decoration was kept blank on the printed page.
Each purchaser could choose the design and
decide on the painting school that would do the
illustrations.
 The shift from hand printing to mechanical printing led to the
print revolution.

The Print Access to books created a new culture of reading. Earlier,

Revolution reading was restricted to the elites. Common people lived in a
world of oral culture. They heard sacred texts read out, ballads
and Its recited, and folk tales narrated. Knowledge was transferred
orally. People collectively heard a story or saw a performance.
Impact
printers began publishing popular ballads and folk tales, and
such books would be profusely illustrated with pictures. These
were then sung and recited at gatherings in villages and in
taverns in towns.
 • Not everyone welcomed the printed book, and
those who did also had fears about it. Many
were apprehensive of the effects that the easier
access to the printed word and the wider
circulation of books, could have on people’s
Religious minds.
Debates and • It was feared that if there was no control over
what was printed and read then rebellious and
the Fear of irreligious thoughts might spread. If that
happened the authority of ‘valuable’ literature
Print would be destroyed. Expressed by religious
authorities and monarchs, as well as many
writers and artists, this anxiety was the basis of
widespread criticism of the new printed
literature that had began to circulate.
 Protestant Reformation
• In 1517, the religious reformer Martin Luther wrote Ninety-Five Theses criticising
many of the practices and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church. A printed copy of this
was posted on a church door in Wittenberg. It challenged the Church to debate his
ideas.
• Luther’s writings were immediately reproduced in vast numbers and read widely.
• This led to a division within the Church and to the beginning of the Protestant
Reformation. Luther’s translation of the New Testament sold 5,000 copies within a
few weeks and a second edition appeared within three months.
• Deeply grateful to print, Luther said, ‘Printing is the ultimate gift of God and the
greatest one.’ Several scholars, in fact, think that print brought about a new
intellectual atmosphere and helped spread the new ideas that led to the Reformation.
 • Print and popular religious literature stimulated
many distinctive individual interpretations of faith
even among little-educated working people.
• In the 16th century, Menocchio, a miller in Italy,
began to read books that were available in his
locality. He reinterpreted the message of the Bible
and formulated a view of God and Creation that
Print and enraged the Roman Catholic Church.
Dissent • When the Roman Church began its inquisition to
repress heretical ideas, Menocchio was hauled up
twice and ultimately executed.
• The Roman Church, troubled by such effects of
popular readings and questionings of faith, imposed
severe controls over publishers and booksellers and
began to maintain an Index of Prohibited Books from
1558
 The Reading Mania
• As literacy and schools spread in European countries, there was a virtual reading mania.
• New forms of popular literature appeared in print, targeting new audiences. Booksellers
employed pedlars who roamed around villages, carrying little books for sale.
• There were almanacs or ritual calendars, along with ballads and folktales.
• In England, penny chapbooks were carried by petty pedlars known as chapmen, and sold
for a penny, so that even the poor could buy them.
• In France, were the ‘Biliotheque Bleue’, which were low-priced small books printed on
poor quality paper and bound in cheap blue covers.
• Then there were the romances, printed on four to six pages, and the more substantial
‘histories’ which were stories about the past.
• Books were of various sizes, serving many different purposes and interests.
Newspaper, Science and Philosophy

• Newspapers and journals carried information about wars and trade, as well
as news of developments in other places.
• Similarly, the ideas of scientists and philosophers now became more
accessible to the common people.
• Ancient and medieval scientific texts were compiled and published, and
maps and scientific diagrams were widely printed. When scientists like Isaac
Newton began to publish their discoveries, they could influence a much
wider circle of scientifically minded readers.
• The writings of thinkers such as Thomas Paine, Voltaire and Jean Jacques
Rousseau were also widely printed and read. Thus, their ideas about
science, reason and rationality found their way into popular literature
 • By the mid-eighteenth century, there was a common
conviction that books were a means of spreading
progress and enlightenment. Many believed that books
could change the world, liberate society from
despotism and tyranny.
• Louise-Sebastien Mercier, a novelist in eighteenth-
Tremble, century France, declared: ‘The printing press is the
most powerful engine of progress and public opinion
therefore, is the force that will sweep despotism away.’
• In many of Mercier’s novels, the heroes are
tyrants of transformed by acts of reading. They devour books, are
lost in the world books create, and become enlightened
the world!’ in the process.
• Convinced of the power of print in bringing
enlightenment and destroying the basis of despotism,
Mercier proclaimed: ‘Tremble, therefore, tyrants of the
world! Tremble before the virtual writer!’
Print Culture and the French Revolution

I. Print popularised the ideas of the Enlightenment thinkers: The writings of

Voltaire and Rousseau were read widely. They argued for the rule of reason
rather than custom and demanded that everything be judged through the
application of reason and rationality. They attacked the sacred authority of
the Church and the despotic power of the state.
II. Print created a new culture of dialogue and debate.
III. By the 1780s there was an outpouring of literature that mocked the royalty
and criticised their morality. . Cartoons and caricatures typically suggested
that the monarchy remained absorbed only in sensual pleasures while the
common people suffered immense hardships.