MANAV RACHNA INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL

SECTOR -51,GURUGRAM
GRADE X
PRINT CULTURE AND THE MODERN WORLD (2024-25)

SOME IMPORTANT TERMS

 Almanac - an annual calendar containing important dates and statistical information such as
astronomical data.
 Ballad – a historical account of folktale, usually sung or recited.
 Biliotheque Blue – low priced small books printed in France. These were printed on poor quality
paper and bound in cheap blue covers.
 Calligraphy – the art of beautiful and stylised writing.
 Chapbook – a term used to describe pocket sized book that are sold by travelling pedlars called
chapmen. These became popular from the time of 16th century print revolution.
 Despotism – a system of government in which absolute power is exercised by an individual,
unregulated by legal and constitutional check.
 Fatwa – a legal pronouncement on Islamic law usually given by a mufti (legal scholar) to clarify issues
on which the law is uncertain.
 Heretical – beliefs which do not follow the accepted teachings of the Church.
 Manuscript – a book or a document written by hand.
 Parchment – skin of animals like goat or sheep, especially prepared for writing, painting etc.
 Seditious – action, speech or writing that is seen as opposing the government.
 Scribes – skilled people who used to write manuscripts for the publishers.
 Ulama – legal scholars of Islam and the Sharia.
 Vellum – a parchment made from the skin of animals.
 Vernacular language – language which is a dialect of the country.

SOME IMPORTANT DATES

 594 AD (onwards) – age of hand printing. Books in China were printed by rubbing paper against the
inked surface of woodblocks.
 768-770 AD – Hand-printing technology comes to Japan from China.
 868 AD – Publication of the first book ‘Buddhist Diamond Sutra’ in Japan.
 1430s – Johann Gutenberg developed the first known printing press.
 1508 – introduction of mechanical printing.
 1558 – the Roman Catholic Church began to maintain an index for prohibited books.
 1579 – Catholic priests printed the firstTamil book in Cochin.
 1713 – the first Malayalam book was printed.
 1780 – James Augustus Hickey began to edit the Bengal Gazzete.
 1810 – the first printed edition of Ramcharitmanas by Tulsidas came out.
 1812 – stories for children were published.
 1821 – Raja Rammohan Roy published the SambadKaumudi, the first Bengali newspaper.
 1822 – two Persian newspapers were published.
 1822 – a Gujarati newspaper, the Bombay Samachar made its appearance.
 1857 – a children’s press, devoted to literature for children exclusively, was set up.
 1871 –Jyotiba Phule published Gulamgiri.
 1876 –Rashsundari Debi published her autobiography Amar Jiban.
 1878 – Vernacular Press Act was passed.

Page 1 of 12 | Social Science |

THE FIRST PRINTED BOOKS

 Print technology was developed in China, Japan and Korea first.

 It was a system of hand printing. From AD 594, books were printed by rubbing paper against the inked
surface of wood blocks. As both sides of the thin, porous sheet could not be printed, Chinese books were
folded and stitched at the sides.
 Skilled craftsmen duplicated, with remarkable accuracy, the beautiful calligraphy.
 China remained the major producer of printed material by printing vast numbers of textbooks for the civil
service examinations held for recruiting its personnel.
 17th century: Print diversified. Merchants used print in their everyday life, as they collected trade
information. Reading became a popular leisure activity. Rich women, wives of scholar-officials, published
their plays and poetry.
 By the 19th century: Western powers started exporting new technology to China. Shift from hand printing
to mechanical printing. Shanghai became the hub of new print culture, catering to the Western-style
schools.

PRINT IN JAPAN
 AD 768-770: Buddhist missionaries from China introduced hand-printing technology to Japan.
 The oldest printed book known is a Japanese Buddhist book, the Diamond Sutra printed in AD 868.
 In the 18th century: Edo (Tokyo) published illustrated collection of paintings, showing urban culture;
hundreds of books published on cooking, famous places, women, musical instruments, tea ceremony. etc.
 From Japan, this art travelled to Europe and the US
 PRINT COMES TO EUROPE

Print in Europe
Chinese paper reached Europe via silk
Production of manuscripts began
route

Production of books in Italy

Demand for books increased Books began to be exported

Scribes began to be employed

Woodblock printing brought by Marco Polo Need for quick and cheap production of
popularised books

 11th century: Chinese paper reached Europe through the silk route

Page 2 of 12 | Social Science |

  In 1295, Marco Polo, a great Italian explorer, brought the art of wood block printing from China to Italy.
From Italy it spread to other European countries.
 So far handwritten, expensive books were written on vellum, a parchment made from the
skin of animals, for the elite only.
 Merchants and students in the university towns bought the cheaper printed copies.
 Popularity of books led to export of books to different countries and book fairs in all parts of Europe.
 But the production of handwritten manuscripts could not satisfy the ever-increasing demand for books.
 Copying was an expensive, laborious and time-consuming business. Handwritten books / Manuscripts were
expensive, time-consuming, fragile and awkward to carry. Therefore, their circulation remained limited.
 By the early 15th century, woodblocks were being widely used in Europe for printing textiles, playing cards
and religious pictures with simple, brief texts.
 A great need for cheaper and quicker reproduction of texts which could only be met with the invention
of new print technology.
 First Printing Press – invented by Johann Gutenberg of Germany in the 1430s.

GUTENBERG AND THE PRINTING PRESS

First Printing presses Beginning

Adapted book set up in Europe of Print
existing printed Revolution
Son of a technology was the (1450-1550)
merchant, of olive Bible
grew on an and wine
agricultural presses,
Production of book
estate made a
multiplied
printing Printed books
press and resembled
metal written
alphabet manuscripts in
appearance and
layout

 Gutenberg, son of a merchant, mastered printing technique by 1448. First book he printed was the Bible. It
took him 3 years to print 180 copies.
 The new technology did not entirely displace the existing art of producing books by hand.
 Printed books at first closely resembled the written manuscripts in appearance and layout.
 Borders were illuminated by hand with foliage and other pattern, and illustrations were painted. In the books
printed for the rich, space for decoration was kept blank on the printed page.
 From 1450-1550 printing presses were set up in most countries of Europe. The second half of the 15th century
saw 20 million printed books in Europe, by the 16th century the number was 200 million copies.
 William Caxton set up the first printing press in England.
 The shift from hand printing to mechanical printing led to the Print Revolution.

Page 3 of 12 | Social Science |

THE PRINT REVOLUTION AND ITS IMPACT
 Print Revolution transformed the lives of the people; changed their relationship to information and knowledge;
opened up new ways of looking at things.

A NEW READING PUBLIC

 A New Reading Public emerged due to low cost of books, multiple production of books quickly, reaching out
to an ever-growing eager readership.
 Book reading led to a new culture of reading. Earlier, reading was restricted to the elites. Common people lived
in a world of oral culture. They heard sacred texts in the forms of ballads recited, and folk tales narrated.
Knowledge to them was given orally.
 Oral Culture was now replaced by print culture. Hearing public was replaced by a reading public.
 Publishers chose themes which were enjoyed listening to, as rate of literacy was still low till the 20th century
in most European countries.
 So printers began publishing popular ballads and folk tales illustrated with pictures. Books were sung and
recited in gatherings in villages and taverns in towns.
 Oral culture thus entered print and printed material was orally transmitted. And the hearing public and the
reading public became intermingled.

RELIGIOUS DEBATES AND THE FEAR OF PRINT

 Print led to religious debates and fear of print.
 The new printed literature was criticized as it was feared that there was no control over what was
printed and read. People could express their ideas in print and spread them. Through the printed
message, they could persuade people to think differently and move them to action.
 Fear of books spread. Rebellious and irreligious thoughts could be spread by new books.
 Many writers, artists, religious authorities and monarchs were worried about the loss of
valuable literature due to uncontrolled printed works.
 Martin Luther wrote Ninety-Five Theses in 1517, criticising the Roman Catholic Church for its
many rituals. It ultimately led to a division within the Church and the beginning of

Page 4 of 12 | Social Science |

 Reformation and Protestantism in Christianity.
 Luther translated the New Testament into German and it sold 5,000 copies in a few weeks. Luther
called Printing. ‘the ultimate gift of God and the greatest one’.
 Several scholars think that print brought about a new intellectual atmosphere and helped spread
the new ideas that led to the Reformation.

PRINT AND DISSENT

 Dissent became a part of print. The clergy became afraid of the new awakening.
 Erasmus, a Latin scholar and a Catholic reformer, expressed deep fear of printing, accusing the
printers for filling the world with slanderous, irreligious and seditious books.
 Menocchio, a miller in Italy, after reading books available in his locality, reinterpreted the message
of the Bible and formulated a view of God and Creation that enraged the Roman Catholic Church.
 Catholic Church began inquisition to repress heretical ideas.
 The Roman Church troubled by such effects of popular reading and questioning of faith,
imposed severe controls over publishers and booksellers and began to maintain an Index of
Prohibited Books from 1558.

THE READING MANIA

 Rise in literacy rate - The 17th and 18th centuries saw the rise of literacy rates in almost
all parts of Europe.Churches of different denominations set up schools in villages, carrying literacy
to peasants and artisans. Literacy rates in Europe were as high as 60 to 80%. As the literacy rate
increased and schools spread, people wanted more books to read and printers increased their production.
 New forms of popular literature - New forms of literature appeared in print that targeted
new audiences. Booksellers employed pedlars who roamed around villages, carrying little books for sale.
There were almanacs or ritual calendars, ballads and folktales. In England, penny chapbooks were
carried by petty pedlars known as chapmen. They were sold for a penny and could be afforded
even by the poor. Low-priced small books, printed on poor quality paper, called ‘BiliothequeBleue’ sold
in France. Romances and histories were also printed. Books were of various sizes, serving many
different purposes and interests.
 Rise of periodical press – from the early eighteenth century, the periodical press printed
information about current affairs with entertainment. Newspapers and journals wrote about wars and
trade, and developments in other places.
 Ideas of Scientists and Philosophers - Ancient and medieval scientific texts were compiled and
published. Maps and scientific diagrams were widely printed. It attracted people. For example, Ideas of
Isaac Newton, Thomas Paine, Voltaire and Rousseau reached a larger public and their ideas
about science, reason and nation became popular literature.

PRINT CULTURE AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

 Many historians believe that it was the print culture that created conditions which led to the French Revolution:
 Print popularized the ideas of the Enlightenment thinkers. They argued for the rule of reason
rather than custom and demanded that everything be judged through the application of reason

Page 5 of 12 | Social Science |

 and rationality. They attacked the sacred authority of the Church and the despotic powers of the
state; thus, eroding the legitimacy of a social order based on tradition. Voltaire and Rousseau
were widely read.
 All values, norms and institutions were re-evaluated and discussed by a public that was inquisitive,
critical and rational. They had now recognised the need to question existing ideas and beliefs.
Hence, new ideas of social revolution came into being.
 By the 1780s: Literature mocked the royalty and criticized their morality. This led to the
growth of hostile sentiments against the monarchy.
 However, if people read the ideas of Rousseau and Voltaire, then they also read the ideas of
monarchical and Church propaganda. They were not influenced by everything that they read or saw.
They rejected some ideas and accepted others. They reinterpreted things in their own way.
Print did not directly shape their minds, but it opened up the possibility of thinking differently.

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

 19th century saw children, women and workers becoming new readers.
CHILDREN, WOMEN AND WORKERS
 As primary education became compulsory from the late nineteenth century, children became
an important category of readers.
 Books for children, textbooks, folk tales were published.
 1857: A children’s press devoted to literature for children alone was set up in France.
 This press published new works as well as old fairy tales and folk tales.
For example – The Grimm Brothers in Germany.
 Women not only became important readers but also writers.
 Penny magazines especially meant for women – were manuals teaching proper behaviour and housekeeping.
 Some of the best-known novelists of the 19th century were women – Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters,
George Eliot.
 Their writings became important in defining a new type of woman: a person with will,
strength of personality, determination and the power to think.
 Lending libraries in England became instruments of education for white-collar workers, artisans
and lower middle-class people.

Page 6 of 12 | Social Science |

FURTHER INNOVATIONS

Methods of
feeding
Beginnin paper Introductio
Perfection improved,
Series of Develop g of n of
of power- plates'
innovations ment of electrical photoelectric
driven quality
controls of
in print offset ly became
cylindrical the colour
technology. press operated better with
press. register.
press introduction
of automated
paper reels

 By the late eighteenth century, the press came to be made out of metal.
 Innovations in Print technology were made throughout the nineteenth century –
 Richard M. Hoe of New York perfected - Power-driven cylindrical press which produced 8000 sheets per
hour. This press was particularly useful for printing newspapers.
 Offset press developed and printed up to six colours at a time.
 Electrically-operated presses accelerated printing operations.
 Transformation in printed texts was done through various mechanical improvements:
 Methods of feeding paper improved.
 The quality of plates became better.
 Introduction of automatic paper reels.
 Introduction of photoelectric controls of the colour register.
 New strategies in selling –
 Serialised novels.
 Cheap series called the Shilling Series.
 The dust cover jacket.
 The Great Depression of the 1930s led to cheap paperback editions because of fear of decline in book purchases.
 Impact of Print Revolution felt in reading, publishing, growth of ideas, knowledge and new ways of
looking at things.

INDIA AND THE WORLD OF PRINT

MANUSCRIPTS BEFORE THE AGE OF PRINT

Page 7 of 12 | Social Science |

 India has a very old and rich tradition of handwritten manuscripts – in Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian as
well as vernacular languages.
 Manuscripts were copied on palm leaves or on handmade paper. They would be preserved between
wooden covers or sewn together.
 Problems of Manuscripts:
 very expensive
 very fragile,
 had to be handled carefully
 script written in different styles – could not be read easily.

PRINT COMES TO INDIA

 Print came to India in the mid-16th century to Goa, brought by the Portuguese.
 In 1579, Catholics printed first Tamil book at Cochin. In 1773, the first Malayalam book was printed
by them. Dutch Protestant missionaries printed 32 Tamil texts.
 First regular periodical in India, Hickey’s Bengal Gazette, in English in the late 17th century.
 First Indian Newspaper to appear, the weekly, Bengal Gazette by Raja Rammohun Roy’s associate
Gangadhar Bhattacharya.

RELIGIOUS REFORMS AND PUBLIC DEBATES

 Early 19th century, age of reforms, intense debates around religious issues.
 Traditional practices criticised, new ideas emerged.
 Printed tracts and newspapers spread the new ideas and generated discussions and expressions from the
public. A wider public could now engage in these public discussions and express their views.

 Intense controversies between social and religious reformers and Hindu Orthodoxy debated widow remarriage,
sati, monotheism, idolatry and Brahmanical priesthood.
 In Bengal, tracts and newspapers flooded, circulating a variety of arguments. To reach a wider audience, the
ideas were printed in the everyday, spoken language of ordinary people.
 Rammohun Roy published SambadKaumudi from 1821. Hindu Orthodoxy published Samachar Chandrika to
oppose his ideas.
 Two Persian newspapers published – Jam-i-Jahan Nama and Shamsul Akhbar from 1822.
 Gujarati newspaper Bombay Samachar was published from 1822.
 In North India, the Ulama, afraid of the English changing the Muslim Personal Laws, printed newspapers in
Urdu and Persian.
 Deoband Seminary, founded in 1867, published fatwas telling Muslims how to behave and explaining the
meaning of Islamic Doctrines.
 Among Hindus, too, print encouraged the reading of religious texts, especially in the vernacular languages.
 Ramcharitmanas by Tulsidas was first printed from Calcutta in 1810.
 The Naval Kishore Press of Lucknow, known as the most prestigious publishing house in this period, made
great contribution to Urdu publication.
 Shri Venkateshwar Press of Bombay, another famous firm, published literature in vernacular languages.

Page 8 of 12 | Social Science |

 Thus, print did not only stimulate the publication of conflicting opinions amongst communities but it also
connected various people, communities, sects in different parts of the country.
 It contributed to the growth of pan-Indian identities.

NEW FORMS OF PUBLICATION

 Printing created a desire for new kinds of writing.
 The novel soon became a distinct form of print. Other genres of writing were lyrics, short stories, essays
about social and political matters. They reinforced the new emphasis on human lives and intimate feelings
and the political and social rules that shaped such things.
 By the end of 19th century, visual images could be easily reproduced in multiple copies.
A new visual culture was born – painters like Ravi Varma produced images for mass circulation.
 Cheap prints and calendars were easily available in the bazaar. People could decorate their houses
with cheap prints and calendars, even the poor could afford them.These prints shaped ideas about
modernity and tradition, religion and politics, and society and culture.
 By the 1870s, caricatures and cartoons were being published in journals and newspapers, commenting on
social and political issues. Cartoons and caricatures in pro-British publications lampooned
nationalists and nationalist cartoons criticised imperial rule.

WOMEN AND PRINT

 Women were affected by print culture. Liberal husbands and fathers started educating them at home
and sent them to schools when women’s schools were set up in towns and cities.
 There were dissenters too. Hindus believed that an educated woman would be widowed soon.
Muslims believed she would be corrupted by reading Urdu romances.
 Some rebellious women defied this prohibition.
 Examples:
 A girl from conservative Muslim family learnt Urdu herself.
 In the early 19th century, Rashsundari Debi, a young married girl learnt to read in the secrecy
of her kitchen. She later wrote her autobiography, Amar Jiban in 1876. It was the first full length
autobiography published in Bengali-language.
 Women Writers from 1860 onwards were:
 Kailashbashini Debi, a Bengali, wrote how women were imprisoned at home, denied education,
 forced to do hard domestic work and was treated unjustly.
 Tarabai Shinde and PanditaRamabai of Maharashtra wrote in 1880s, about the plight of upper-caste
Hindu women, especially widows, with great anger.
 A Tamil novel expressed through a woman character about reading denied to women.
 Begum RokeyaSakhawat Hossein, a noted educationist and literary figure, condemned men for
denying education to women.
 By the 1870s, Hindi printing progressed. (Urdu, Tamil, Bengali and Marathi print culture had developed early).
 In the early twentieth century, journals written for and sometimes edited by women, became extremely popular.
They discussed issues like women’s education, widowhood, widow remarriage and the national movement.
Some of them also offered household and fashion lessons to women and brought entertainment through

Page 9 of 12 | Social Science |

 short stories.
 In Punjab: Early 20th century, Ram Chaddha’sIstri Dharam Vichar, taught women to be obedient housewives.
The Khalsa Tract Society published many cheap booklets with the same message.
 In Bengal, Battala, an entire area in Central Calcutta, was totally devoted to printing popular books,
sold by pedlars from door to door, enabling women to read them in their leisure time.

PRINT AND THE POOR PEOPLE

 Poor people could now buy cheap small books which were sold at crossroads. Public libraries were set up
in early 20th century, expanding the access to books.
 From the late nineteenth century, issues of caste discrimination began to be written about in many printed
tracts and essays.
 Jyotiba Phule, a Maratha reformer, wrote on behalf of low-castes. His Gulamgiri (1871) highlighted
the injustices of caste system.
 In the 20th century, Dr B.R. Ambedkar of Maharashtra and E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker in Madras
(known as Periyar) wrote against the caste system, read by people all over India.
 Workers like Kashibaba wrote and published ChhoteAur Bade Ka Sawal in 1938 to show the links
between caste and class exploitation.
 A millworker of Kanpur wrote under the name of ‘Sudarshan Chakr’ between 1935-1955, a collection
named SacchiKavitayan.
 By 1930s, millworkers of Bangalore cotton mills set up libraries to educate themselves following the
example of Bombay workers.
 These were sponsored by social reformers who wanted to restrict excessive drinking among them,
to bring literacy and propagate nationalism.

PRINT AND CENSORSHIP

 Before 1798, colonial rulers (East India Company) did not impose censorship.
 By 1820s: The Calcutta Supreme Court passed certain regulations to control press freedom and the
Company began encouraging publication of newspapers that would celebrate the British rule.
 In 1835: Faced with urgent petitions by editors of the English and vernacular newspapers,
Governor-General Bentinck agreed to revise press laws. Thomas Macaulay formulated new rules that
restored their earlier freedoms.
 The Revolt of 1857 changed the attitude of the British. Englishmen demanded repression
of the ‘Native Press’.
 In 1878, Vernacular Press Act was passed. It gave the government extensive rights to censor reports
and editorials in vernacular newspapers.
 From now on, the government kept regular track of the vernacular newspapers published in different provinces.
When a report was judged as seditious, the newspaper was warned, and if the warning was ignored,
the press was liable to be seized and the printing machinery confiscated.
 Militant protests and publication of more nationalist newspapers was the reaction. They reported
on colonial misrule and encouraged nationalist activities.
 Punjab revolutionaries were deported in 1907. Bal Gangadhar Tilak was imprisoned in 1908 for writing

Page 10 of 12 | Social Science |

 against the deportation in his Kesari, provoking inturn widespread protest all over India.
Gandhiji condemned the Vernacular Press Act in 1922. He saw freedom of press as a powerful vehicle of
expressing and cultivating public opinion.

ASSIGNMENT

Very Short Answer Type Questions

1. Where did the earliest kind of print technology, i.e., the system of hand printing develop?
2. Name the city in China which became the hub of new print culture in the late nineteenth century.
3. Name the oldest Japanese book.
4. What was the earlier name of Tokyo?
5. What is vellum?
6. Why did the Roman Catholic Church begin to maintain an Index of Prohibited Books from 1558?
7. What are almanacs?
8. What are chapbooks?
9. What were ‘Biliotheque Blue’ in France?
10. What was the contribution of Richard M. Hoe to the art of printing?
11. What were Shilling Series?
12. Mention any one characteristic of the offset press.
13. Who brought the printing press first to Goa?
14. Who brought out the Bengal Gazette?
15. Who published SambadKaumudi?
16. Name the two Persian newspapers which were published from 1822 onwards.
17. Name the first edition of Indian religious text published in vernacular.
18. Name the book published by Rama Chadha in Punjab. What was the main theme of the book?
19. Why was the Vernacular Press Act passed?
20. Who was the editor of the newspaper Kesari?

Short Answer Type Questions

1. ‘The imperial state in China, was the major producer of printed material.’ Support this statement with examples.
2. Describe the progress of print in Japan.
3. Who brought the technology of woodblock printing to Europe? Why was it not popular in aristocratic circles?
Who purchased the wood printed books?
4. Why did the woodblock method become popular in Europe?
5. Why did the new technology not entirely displace the existing art of producing books by hand?
6. In which three ways did the printed books at first closely resemble the written manuscripts?
7. How did print bring the reading public and hearing public closer?
8. How did ideas about science, reason and rationality, find their way into popular literature in the eighteenth-
century Europe?
9. Who was Menocchio? Why and how did he face the wrath of the Roman Catholic Church?
10. Print popularized the ideas of the enlightenment thinkers. Explain.
11. Explain any three reasons which created a large number of new readers in the nineteenth century.
12. What did the spread of print culture in the nineteenth century do to:
a. Children
b. Workers in the Europe
c. Women
13. Give three methods by which printed books became more accessible to people.
14. Explain any three features of handwritten manuscripts before the age of print in India.
15. Write a short note on how printing press came to India.

Page 11 of 12 | Social Science |

16. How did print help connect communities and people in different parts of India? Explain with examples.
17. Why did the Ulema oppose English culture? What steps did they take to counter its impact?
18. How had the earliest printing technology developed in the world? Explain with examples.
19. Who was Gutenberg? How did he develop the printing press? How did his invention bring a revolution in the
field of printing ideas?
20. Examine the reasons for a virtual reading mania in Europe in the 18th century.
21. How did oral culture enter print and how was printed material transmitted orally? Explain.
22. Who was Louise-Sebastien Mercier? What was his opinion on the printing press? Explain three reasons why it
is believed that print culture created the conditions within which the French Revolution occurred?

Long Answer Type Questions

1. Explain how the print media and newspapers became agencies of religious reforms and public debates in India
during the early nineteenth century.
2. ‘By the end of 19th century, a new visual culture was taking shape.’ Explain.
3. ‘Print technology gave women a chance to share their feelings with the world outside.’ Support the statement
with any five suitable examples.
4. What was the attitude of liberal and conservative Indians towards women’s reading? How did women like
Kailashbashini Debi respond to this in her writings?
5. Why were the printed books popular even among illiterate people?

Page 12 of 12 | Social Science |