DISSERTATION RESEARCH - HOW PRINT CHANGED THE WORLD

Affects of the the printing press

In the last 5000 years, several turning points have shaped the world in which we live.  One of the first turning points was the invention of writing, which gave stable societies the ability to account and record.  The invention of the alphabet was another major turning point that brought writing and communication to societies through cultural diffusion.  This site deals with a third major turning point,which was the invention of the printing press in the 15th century by Johann Gutenberg.  

Printing itself was invented long before the printing press.  China was the pioneer for printing.  With their invention of wood block printing, they applied ink to carved wooden blocks, which were used to transfer an image to paper.  Koreans later used this process allowing playing cards, picture images, and books to make their way to Europe.  Eventually Europe began using this process for printing, but the true turning point came with Gutenberg’s metal moveable type system.  This system made printing faster and more efficient.  While it normally took a month or two to produce a single copy of a book, Gutenberg’s press made 500 copies a week possible.  This led to an increase of education in Europe, the scientific revolution, and the spread of the Protestant Reformation.  It has also continued the spread of communication, technology, learning, and entertainment in today’s society worldwide, which can be seen in Barnes and Noble along with Amazon book sales in 2008.  The two major media salers combined to sale more than $9.5 billion in books.        

The Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation came about because Catholics were questioning the practices of their church.  These practices in question were the purchases and sales of church positions, buying indulgences, and overall corruption in the church’s hierarchy involving even the Pope.  A man named Martin Luther challenged the Pope and the church on these abuses in 1517 with his famous publication of the Ninety-Five Theses.  These ninety-five points were Luther's way of calling the Catholic Church out on their wrongs.  In number 82, Luther asks the Pope why he doesn't empty purgatory out of holy love for the souls rather than for money.  

   

During this encounter, many German people asked for the translation of the document since many of them didn't speak Latin, and a young college student took on this very task.  After his translation was complete, he sent it to his university's printing press where hundreds of copies were made.  These copies spread throughout Europe quickly giving the reformation support.  In the long run, the printing press was the main catalyst that conveyed Luther’s ideas by allowing him to mass-produce pamphlets that outlined the church’s wrongs and emphasized their abuses.  The printing press helped the Protestant propaganda spread throughout Europe furthering Martin Luther’s success and affording him many supporters. 

The Scientific Revolution

The Scientific Revolution was a period in the Middle Ages when new ideas about the major sciences led to a rejection of Ancient Greek doctrines that had prevailed up to that point.  The printing press made it possible for Scientists to publish their findings without misinterpretation, which was a common occurrence when scribes were hired to write books.  Once the printing press was set, an exact copy was printed again and again.  This led to the publications of many key ideas during the Scientific Revolution.

·        Nicolaus Copernicus published On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres in      1543.  This advanced the Heliocentric Theory of cosmology. 

·        Andreas Vesalius published On the Fabric of the Human Body in 1543.  He found that the heart was responsible for the circulation of blood in the human body. 

·        William Gilbert published a book in 1600 that laid the foundations on the theory of magnetism and electricity.

·        Johannes Kepler published his first two laws of planetary motion in 1609.

·        Rene Descartes published Discourse on the Method in 1637, which helped establish the Scientific Method.