Print Culture and the Modern World

Hand printing in East Asia, Gutenberg’s press, the print revolution in Europe, and the growth of print and censorship in India.

Key ideas

• The earliest printing was by hand in China, Japan and Korea, rubbing paper on inked woodblocks.
• Gutenberg developed the first-known printing press in the 1430s, modelled on the olive press, with metal letters.
• Print made books cheaper and more plentiful and created a reading public; pedlars sold cheap chapbooks.
• Some feared print: rulers worried about rebellious ideas, and Erasmus about a glut of books.
• Print spread the ideas of Enlightenment thinkers and a culture of debate; Mercier called the press a powerful engine of progress.
• In the 19th century Hoe’s cylindrical press printed 8,000 sheets an hour and offset presses printed in colour.
• In India, print reached Goa in the mid-16th century; women like Rashsundari Debi wrote about their lives, and the Vernacular Press Act brought censorship.

Remember

Watch out

• Saying Gutenberg invented printing: hand printing came first in East Asia.
• Mixing up chapbooks (cheap pocket books) and almanacs (yearly guides to the sun, moon and tides).
• Getting “how many times faster” upside down: divide the faster rate by the slower one.

Worked example