Print Culture & the Modern World Summary Class 10 Social Science Chapter 2

The First Printed Books

Print in China

• The first print technology was created in China, Japan, and Korea, using a method known as hand printing.
• From AD 594, books in China were printed by pressing paper against inked wooden blocks, which were also invented there.
• Since the thin sheets could only be printed on one side, the traditional Chinese 'accordion book' was folded and sewn on the side.
• For a long time, the imperial state was the main producer of printed works in China.
• China had a vast bureaucratic system that employed its staff through civil service exams, leading to the mass printing of textbooks for these exams.
• Skilled artisans could replicate beautiful calligraphy with great precision.
• Wealthy women started reading, and many began publishing their own poetry and plays.
• Wives of scholar-officials published their writings, and courtesans shared their stories.
• This emerging reading culture coincided with new technology.
• In the late 19th century, printing began to shift to mechanical methods as Western printing techniques were introduced when Western powers established themselves in China.
• Shanghai became the centre of this new print culture, serving Western-style schools.

Print in Japan

• Between AD 768-770, Buddhist missionaries from China brought hand-printing technology to Japan.
• The oldest Japanese printed book, the Buddhist Diamond Sutra, was produced in AD 868 and contains six sheets.

Print Comes to Europe

• In the 11th century, Chinese paper reached Europe through the silk route.
• In 1295, explorer Marco Polo returned to Italy after spending years in China, bringing knowledge of woodblock printing.
• Italians began to create books using woodblocks, and this technology quickly spread across Europe.
• As the need for books grew, booksellers across Europe started exporting them widely.
• However, the production of handwritten manuscripts could not keep up due to:
  • Copying being costly, labor-intensive, and time-consuming.
  • Manuscripts being delicate and difficult to manage.
• The breakthrough came in Strasbourg, Germany, where Johann Gutenberg invented the first-known printing press in the 1430s.

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Gutenberg and the Printing Press

• Gutenberg learned the art of polishing stones, became a master goldsmith, and also acquired the expertise to create lead moulds used for making trinkets.
• Based on this knowledge, Gutenberg adapted existing technology to design his innovation.
• By 1448, Gutenberg perfected the system. The first book he printed was the Bible.
• Between 1450 and 1550, printing presses were set up in most countries of Europe.

The Print Revolution and Its Impact

A New Reading Public

• Access to books created a new culture of reading.
• However, the rates of literacy in most European countries were very low till the twentieth century which was a major hurdle in spreading of this culture.
• So printers began publishing popular ballads and folk tales, and such books would be profusely illustrated with pictures.

Religious Debates and the Fear of Print

• People believed can lead to the fear of the spread of rebellious and irreligious thoughts.
• In 1517, the religious reformer Martin Luther wrote ‘Ninety Five Theses’ criticising many of the practices and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church.
• This led to a division within the Church and to the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.

Print and Dissent

• In the 16th century, Menocchio, an Italian miller, read local books and reinterpreted the Bible.
• His views on God and Creation angered the Roman Catholic Church.
• Menocchio was tried and executed for heresy as a result.
• To tackle such dissent, the Church enforced strict regulations on publishers and booksellers.
• They maintained an Index of Prohibited Books starting in 1558.

The Reading Mania

• By the end of the eighteenth century, in some parts of Europe literacy rates were as high as 60 to 80 percent.
• In England, Penny chapbooks were carried by petty pedlars known as chapmen and sold for a penny.
• In France were the ‘Biliotheque Bleue’ - low priced small books printed on poor quality paper and bound in cheap blue covers.
• Newspapers and journals carried information about wars and trade, as well as news of developments in other places.

‘Tremble, therefore, tyrants of the world!’

• By the mid-18th century, many believed books could drive progress and enlightenment, ending tyranny and promoting reason. 
• French novelist Louise-Sebastien Mercier viewed the printing press as a powerful tool for change. In his novels, reading transforms heroes, making them enlightened. 
• Mercier famously warned tyrants to fear the power of print.

Print Culture and the French Revolution

• Print culture created the conditions within which French Revolution occurred.
• Print popularized the ideas of the Enlightenment thinkers and created a new culture of dialogue and debate.
• By the 1780s, literature mocked the royalty and criticized their morality were large in number.

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The Nineteenth Century

Children, Women and Workers

• In 1857, in France, a children’s press, devoted to literature for children alone was set up.
• Women became important as readers as well as writers.
• Penny Magazines were especially meant for women, manuals teaching proper behaviors and housekeeping.
• In the nineteenth century, lending libraries in England became a medium for educating white-collar workers, artisans and lower-middle-class people.

Further Innovations

• By mid 19th Century, Richard M. Hoe perfected the power driven cylindrical press.
• In the late 19th century, offset press was developed that can print up to six colours at a time.
• By the 20th century, electrically operated presses accelerated printing operations.

India and the World of Print

Manuscripts Before the Age of Print

• In India, manuscripts were copied on palm leaves or on handmade paper.

Print Comes to India

• In the mid-sixteenth century, the printing press arrived in Goa with Portuguese missionaries.
• By 1674, around 50 books were printed in the Konkani and Kanara languages.
• Catholic priests printed the first Tamil book in 1579 at Cochin.
• In 1713, the first Malayalam book was printed by Catholic priests.
• By 1710, Dutch Protestant missionaries had printed 32 Tamil texts, many of which were translations of older works.
• Starting in 1780, James Augustus Hickey began editing the Bengal Gazette, a weekly magazine.

Religious Reform and Public Debates

• From the early nineteenth century, there were intense debates around religious issues.
• Different groups offered a variety of new interpretations of the beliefs of different religions.
• In 1821, Rammohun Roy published the Sambad Kaumudi.
• In 1810, the first printed edition of the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas, a 16th century text published in Calcutta.

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New Forms of Publication

• The novel, a literary firm which had developed in Europe soon acquired distinctively Indian forms and styles.
• Other new literary forms such as lyrics, short stories, essays about social and political matters also entered the world of reading.
• Painters like Raja Ravi Varma produced visual images for mass circulation.

Women and Print

• Liberal husbands and fathers began educating their womenfolk at home.
• Conservative Hindus believed that a literate girl would be widowed.
• Muslims feared that educated women would be corrupted by reading Urdu romances.

Print and the Poor People

• By the end of the nineteenth century, very cheap and small books became available in markets.
• From this time, issues of caste discrimination began to be discussed in many printed tracts and essays.

Print and Censorship

• Before 1798, the colonial state under the East India Company was not much concerned about censorship.
• By 1820s, the Calcutta Supreme Court passed certain regulations to control press freedom.
• After the revolt of 1857, the attitude to freedom of the press changed. 
• In 1878, the Vernacular Press Act was passed which provided the government with extensive rights to censor reports and editorials in the vernacular press.
• Despite repressive measures, nationalist newspapers grew in numbers in all parts of India.