Top-Rated Free Essay
Preview

The Printing Press

Satisfactory Essays
358 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Printing Press
Historians rank the printing press among the most revolutionary technologies in all of history. Some may disagree, but many don't know where we'd be right now if this great piece of technology had never been invented. Over the last 500 years, nothing has changed the way we communicate, and even spread religion or literature, as much as the
Printing Press has done.

At the time the printing press was invented, there had been no way to spread religion other than by word of the man or by holy books, which had to be handwritten. It wasn't until the printing press was invented that religious writings, such as Luther's 95 thesis, could become widespread. As can be seen in a map of Europe in 1560, the Printing Press had accomplished the feat of spreading various religions all across Europe.

What may arguably be the greatest thing that the Printing press has brought, is the rapid growth in literature. Go back in time to before the printing press- you had to be among one of the societies richest to be able to afford handwritten books. They were nearly nonexistant at the time. When books could in fact be printed, it became extremely easier to mass produce literature of all types. Books such as ILIAD AND ODYSSEY, UTOPIA, and MICROGRAPGIA are among these great works of art in the world of literature that became famous due to the printing press. These works included knowledge of all sorts of topics. Math, science, and Philosophy were popular subjects which dominated bookshelfs around Europe.

Another one of the crucial consequences of the printing press is how communication became much easier. As you can see in a map of Europe in 1500, Printing Presses were all over Europe. These printing presses allowed communication to be spread all over the world, such as in America which was found by Columbus.

So as you've seen, in these past 500 years, technology has increased greatly. Communication, literature, and religion have gone so far and have became so advanced. It all started from one Johannes Guutenburg, and an invention which changed the world.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Nt1310 Unit 1 Assignment

    • 4237 Words
    • 17 Pages

    On the other hand, communication via such media was incredibly difficult. Think, for example, of the distributional problems the Postal Service would have today if the medium of correspondence were 100lb rocks. They have enough troubles with 1/2-oz letters. A medium of communication that was lightweight and portable was needed. The first successful medium was papyrus (sheets made from the papyrus plant and glued together to form a roll sometimes 20 to 40 ft long, fastened to a wooden roller), which came into use about 2000 B.C. In 190 B.C., parchment (made from animal skins) came into use. The Greeks assembled large libraries in Ephesus and Pergamum (in what is now Turkey) and in Alexandria. According to Plutarch, the library in Pergamum contained 2,00,000 volumes in 40 B.C. (Tuchman, 1980). In 105 A.D. the Chinese invented paper, the modern medium of communication. However, because there was no effective way of duplicating communication, scholarly knowledge could not be widely disseminated. Perhaps the greatest single invention in the intellectual history of the human race was the printing press. Although movable type was invented in China in about 1100 A.D. (Tuchman, 1980), the Western World gives credit to Gutenberg, who printed his 42-line Bible from movable type on a printing press in 1455 A.D. Gutenberg’s invention was…

    • 4237 Words
    • 17 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Another consequence of the printing press was that it made a big impact on the spread of Protestant religion. Luther’s ideas wouldn’t of been able to spread if it wasn’t for the printing press. His ideas helped spread the Catholic Church apart. Document three shows us how Luther’s ideas sought more people because of the printing press. The ideas made its way to lots of people and then the people would start to fall apart from the Catholic Church. Document four shows us a very important picture. One picture is of Jesus driving the moneychangers out of the temple and the other one is a picture of the pope collecting on indulgences. With the help of the printing press people started to realize that that wasn’t what Jesus wanted and that was another…

    • 300 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    DBQ for AP World History

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The printing press was transformed by Johann Gutenberg, a German goldsmith, and more than 8 million books were printed in Western Europe between 1456 and 1500. This invention had an effect with the Protestant Reformation. It not only furthered the knowledge of geography, but it also expanded knowledge throughout the countries and whether you were wealthy or poor, printing made books available to the general public.…

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    HUM 303 Final Project

    • 2380 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Butler, Chris (2007). The flow of history. The invention of the printing press and its effects. Retrieved from: http://www.flowofhistory.com/units/west/11/FC74…

    • 2380 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Gutenberg’s bible is another famous thing. He created it as the first thing ever with the printing press. It was 42 lines long. The original Bible was written in Latin and printed in very thick black ink. The writing was vividly legible, even now, after the passing of many centuries. Gutenberg printed nearly 180 copies of his Bible and it was an immediate bestseller. It was very special in this time because things were developing and everyone wanted to have a book from this new type of technology. These first copies that were immediately recognized for their high aesthetic and technical qualities were expensive, costing several years' salaries for the average working…

    • 456 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    By 1640 print was already responsible for mass publications such as The Bible and The Book of Common Prayer as well as pamphlets and newsbooks, so ‘print’ is an over-arching phrase encapsulating many different types of print…

    • 1523 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Printing Press Dbq

    • 679 Words
    • 3 Pages

    This essay will assess to what degree the invention of the printing press has contributed to the spread of the ideas and ultimately the success of the Reformation in England and Scotland during the Tudor period. The impact of print has been studied by several historians and conclude that the Reformation was ‘virtually unimaginable without the invention of the printing press’. The movable type printing press invented circa 1450 by Johann Gutenberg in Mainz. In 1517 Martin Luther’s nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the Church door in Wittenburg criticising the corruption and abuse of the Catholic Church and its doctrine, and this date is widely accepted to be the starting point of the Reformation. The subsequent printing and distribution of this…

    • 679 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    1493 but he actually discovered the Americas. The letter that he sent to the king was…

    • 524 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    How was the printing press important in the Renaissance? What is a printing press? The printing press was created in 1450 CE by Johannes Gutenberg. It made books spread quicker and it was cheaper. Did the printing press have a larger impact on exploration or the changes in catholic church?…

    • 403 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Information once available to a small percentage of people could now spread to vast numbers. Today, thanks to new communications revolution, information can be spread around the world instantaneously. Faxes, instant messaging, and email all speed up our communication process. We can now share knowledge, experiences and emotions with people around the world. Consequently, the world today may seem no larger than a small village of Renaissance times. The printing revolution brought immense changes. Printed books were cheaper and easier to produce than hand-copied works. With books more readily available, more people learned to read. Readers gained access to a broad range of knowledge, from medicine and law to astrology and mining. Printed books exposed educated Europeans to new ideas, greatly expanding their…

    • 659 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Although the reformation was important to the printing presses success, I believe that exploration was more important. For example, Christopher Columbus would have never discovered the Americas if he had not explored the ocean. The creation and use of the printing press was important to the maps success. The printing press allowed for maps to be mass produced. These maps were then distributed all over Europe. New explorers saw and bought the maps and then went exploring and found new lands. They would then add the information that they discovered to revise and reprint a new map. Exploration also helped the spread of geological knowledge that might not have been spread otherwise. If explorers continued to only explore Europe and Africa they…

    • 159 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The drastic increase in literacy rates had dramatic impacts as well, especially in Europe, home to some of the most advanced civilizations in the early modern period of world history. Before, book copying was controlled by the Church, which could control or monitor what was being written and published. Because the printing press allowed information to spread quickly and accurately, more people…

    • 1010 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    On the other hand, because printing was done by a machine, there was less room for human error so written language became more consistent. These new books were available to people who had never had access to written materials before because printed books were about two-thirds cheaper that handwritten ones and could be mass produced. As a result, libraries had a huge increase in new material and average families could afford books of their own for the first time. One of the most direct effects of the printing press was that it multiplied the number of books while cutting their costs at the same time. As a result of this effect, literacy increased in Europe, especially among the middle and lower classes, and people…

    • 808 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    During the Renaissance period in Germany, the art of printing was invented (Gombrich 168). “Instead of printing from whole blocks of wood, he made single letters out of metal, which could be lined up and held in a frame and then printed from as many times as one wished. When the desired number of copies of a page had been made, the frame could be undone and the letters used again in a different order. It was simple and it was cheap” (Gombrich 168). Instead of copying books by hand, books could now be printed with ease and read all around Europe (Gombrich 168). The invention of the electric telegraph was a way for information to be spread over far distances in a lesser amount of time than it was spread before (Gombrich 242). This, too, became a popular way for rapid communication (Gombrich 242). The growth of technology in the communication field impacted society by spreading news quicker and more…

    • 1542 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    If you think about it, the spread and development of ideas and beliefs can root all the way back to the creation of the printing press. Of course, there is some credit to be given to the Chinese and their creation of the woodblock printing that came before Johannes Gutenberg’s time. But, it was not as influential as the printing press. We have to stop for a moment and ask, “What led to the creation of the printing press?” and how did it become such a key “weapon” in the Protestant and Counter Reformation? In this essay I’ll be discussing the printing press and it’s impact on society and many different categories including: the transition from scripts to the printing culture,…

    • 145 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays