print culture

• Print has a history that has shaped our contemporary world
• Print culture is prevalent in our everyday lives through books, journals, newspapers, prints of famous paintings, theatre programmes, official circulars, calendars, diaries, advertisements, and cinema posters
• Printed literature began to circulate in East Asia before expanding to Europe and India
• The earliest print technology was developed in China, Japan, and Korea, using hand printing techniques
• Books in China were printed by rubbing paper against the inked surface of woodblocks from AD 594 onwards
• China's imperial state was a major producer of printed material, especially for civil service examinations
• Print technology diversified in China in the seventeenth century, becoming popular among merchants and urban culture
• In Japan, hand-printing technology was introduced by Buddhist missionaries in AD 768-770
• In medieval Japan, books were cheap and abundant, leading to a flourishing urban culture
• Chinese paper reached Europe in the eleventh century, leading to the production of manuscripts by scribes
• Marco Polo brought woodblock printing technology from China to Italy in 1295
• Woodblock printing gradually became popular in Europe, leading to the production of millions of printed books by the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
• Johann Gutenberg developed the first-known printing press in Strasbourg, Germany in the 1430s, revolutionizing book production
• The print revolution transformed people's lives, changing their relationship to information, knowledge, institutions, and authorities
• Printing reduced the cost of books, creating a new reading public and culture of reading
• Before the age of print, books were not only expensive but they could not be produced in sufficient numbers
• Books could reach out to wider sections of people after the age of print
• Transition from a hearing public to a reading public was not simple
• Printers began publishing popular ballads and folk tales to persuade common people to welcome printed books
• Printed material was orally transmitted, blurring the line between oral and reading cultures
• Print created the possibility of wide circulation of ideas and introduced a new world of debate and discussion
• Printed message could persuade people to think differently and move them to action
• Many were apprehensive of the effects of easier access to printed word and wider circulation of books on people's minds
• Religious reformer Martin Luther's writings led to the Protestant Reformation
• Print and popular religious literature stimulated distinctive individual interpretations of faith
• Roman Catholic Church imposed severe controls over publishers and booksellers due to effects of popular readings and questionings of faith
• Erasmus expressed anxiety about printing, fearing the negative impact of the multitude of books on scholarship
• By the end of the eighteenth century, in some parts of Europe literacy rates were as high as 60 to 80 per cent
• People experienced a virtual reading mania, with printers producing books in ever-increasing numbers
• New forms of popular literature appeared in print, targeting new audiences
• Periodical press developed from the early eighteenth century, combining information about current affairs with entertainment
• Scientists like Isaac Newton and thinkers like Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Jean Jacques Rousseau had their ideas widely printed and read
• Books were of various sizes, serving many different purposes and interests
• Many believed that books were a means of spreading progress and enlightenment
• Print culture created the conditions within which the French Revolution occurred
• Print popularised the ideas of Enlightenment thinkers, creating a culture of dialogue and debate
• Literature mocking royalty and criticizing their morality circulated underground, leading to hostile sentiments against the monarchy
• Print opened up the possibility of thinking differently, although it did not directly shape minds
• The nineteenth century saw vast leaps in mass literacy in Europe, bringing in large numbers of new readers among children, women, and workers
• As primary education became compulsory from the late nineteenth century, children became an important category of readers