by Irving Fang and Ann Norris
ISBN: 1-933-01171-8
Cost: $15.00
The invention of printing began the modern world. The medieval world passed away. Gutenberg's little press was a pebble dropped into the pond of history, spreading ripples. Printing sent out information in a widening circle. It has been the single greatest step on the road to a free, democratic society.
There is more. With the rise in book production, literature could be absorbed in privacy instead of by sitting in an audience. It is an early example of mass communication’s pattern of physically separating people from one another while at the same time bringing us together in thought and knowledge.
Was this all? No. Printing began industrial repetition. The mistakes of hand copying disappeared. What you got was what the authors intended.
Printing, the second in the 11-volume series, The Story of Communication, takes us from the early printing of China and Korea to our modern books, newspapers, magazines, and libraries.
It raises one of the great mysteries of history. How much did Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of printing with movable type, know about what had already been invented in Asia?
