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The Print Revolution

The printing press was invented in Germany in 1450 and allowed for mass production of books. Capitalism turned printing into an industry with large printers like Plantain employing over 100 workers. By 1500, over 20 million volumes had been printed despite low literacy rates. Printing increased access to popular works but reduced variety as publishers only printed books that would sell. It also facilitated the growth and standardization of national languages as books were translated from Latin, which became obsolete as national literatures emerged in the 16th century.

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321 views1 page

The Print Revolution

The printing press was invented in Germany in 1450 and allowed for mass production of books. Capitalism turned printing into an industry with large printers like Plantain employing over 100 workers. By 1500, over 20 million volumes had been printed despite low literacy rates. Printing increased access to popular works but reduced variety as publishers only printed books that would sell. It also facilitated the growth and standardization of national languages as books were translated from Latin, which became obsolete as national literatures emerged in the 16th century.

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canbalaban365
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The Print Revolution

1 The earliest known book was printed in China in the year 868 and metal type was in use in
Korea at the beginning of the fifteenth century, but it was in Germany around the year 1450 that a
printing press using moveable metal type was invented.
2 Capitalism turned printing from an invention into an industry. Right from the start, book
printing and publishing were organized on capitalist lines. The biggest sixteenth-century printer,
Plantain of Antwerp, had twenty-four printing presses and employed more than a hundred workers.
Only a small fraction of the population was literate, but the production of books grew at an
extraordinary speed. By 1500, some 20 million volumes had already been printed (Febvre and
Martin 1976).
3 The immediate effect of printing was to increase the circulation of works that were already
popular in a handwritten form, while less popular works went out of circulation. Publishers were
interested only in books that would sell fairly quickly in sufficient numbers to cover the costs of
production and make a profit. Thus, while printing enormously increased access to books by
making cheap, high-volume production possible, it also reduced choice.
4 The great cultural impact of printing was that it facilitated the growth of national languages.
Most early books were printed in Latin, the language of educated people, but the market for Latin
was limited, and in its pursuit of larger markets the book trade soon produced translations into the
national languages emerging at this time. Printing indeed played a key role in standardizing and
stabilizing these languages by fixing them in print, and producing dictionaries and grammar books.
Latin became obsolete as national literatures were established in the sixteenth century.

Glossary:
circulation (n) the movement of something between people or places
facilitate (v) make something possible or easier
literate (adj) able to read and write
obsolete (adj) out of date, useless

REFERENCE Fulcher, J., & Scott. J. (2011). Sociology (4th ed.), Oxford: Oxford University
Press.

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