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

The First Printed Books

• The earliest print technology was developed in China, Japan and Korea.
• By the seventeenth century, as urban culture bloomed in China, the uses of print diversified.
• In the late nineteenth century, western printing techniques and mechanical presses were imported as Western powers established their outposts in China. 
• Shanghai became the hub of the new print culture.

Print in Japan

• Around AD 768-770, Buddhist missionaries from China introduced hand-printing technology into Japan.
• The Buddhist Diamond Sutra was the oldest Japanese book which was printed in AD 868.

Print Comes to Europe

• In the 11th century, Chinese paper reached Europe via the silk route.
• In 1295, Marco Polo, a great explorer, returned to Italy from China and brought printing knowledge back with him.
• Italians began producing books with woodblocks, and soon the technology spread to other parts of Europe. As the demand for books increased, booksellers all over Europe began exporting books to many different countries.
• But the production of handwritten manuscripts could not satisfy the ever-increasing demand for books because:
  1. Copying was an expensive, laborious and time-consuming business.
  2. Manuscripts were fragile, awkward to handle.
• In the 1430s, Johann Gutenberg invented new printing technology by developing first-known printing press at Strasbourg, Germany.

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

• 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, creating views on God and Creation that angered the Roman Catholic Church. 
• As a result, Menocchio was tried and executed for heresy. 
• To combat such challenges, the Roman Church imposed strict controls on publishers and booksellers, maintaining 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.

The Nineteenth Century

• 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

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

Print Comes to India

• In the mid-sixteenth century, the printing press first came to Goa with Portuguese missionaries.
• By 1674: About 50 books had been printed in Konkani and in Karana languages.
• Cochin, 1579, Catholic priests printed the first Tamil book
• In 1713, Catholic priests printed the first Malayalam book
• By 1710, Dutch Protestant missionaries had printed 32 Tamil texts
• From 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.

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

• In the 19th century, very cheap and small books were brought to markets.
• From the late nineteenth century, issues of caste discrimination began to be written about 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.