Printing Presses: How Gutenberg Set Out To Change the World

Mar 31
20:19

2016

Robert Jhone

Robert Jhone

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We are used to taking many things for granted in today’s world, where most things have been the way they are ever since we were born. For example, a teenager now might not be able to appreciate wireless internet because that is what he/she was born in to. But a person in their twenties will be more likely to appreciate wireless internet because they have seen the older versions. Similarly, all of us don’t really care or know how the newspapers that we receive or the books we read come in to being and where it all began. This article outlines the advent of printing presses and the role it played in furthering the society.

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Can you really imagine a world,Printing Presses: How Gutenberg Set Out To Change the World Articles where the printed word was not accessible to everyone? Before we are even sent to school, we come into contact with the printed word in the form of children’s books, newspapers, etc. When we finally enter school, we are confronted with copious amounts of the printed word. Interestingly enough, the printed word is the reason for the rise in the literacy rates around the world. What is even more fascinating is that the entire Renaissance movement can be credited with the advent of printing as it was the only reason how old and new texts concerning science, religion, poetry, etc. came into being. By the sixteenth century, suddenly classical Greek texts were being printed and made accessible to hundreds of people around the world.

Education is a very important tool in furthering intellectual needs and making the world a better place. Before the fifteenth century, there were little ways of the written word being distributed because everything had to be copied by hand. So, while there were existing forms of written works, there weren’t a lot of them and because of that, not everyone had access to them. Also, copying these works meant working tirelessly on one copy for months. By 600 A.D., the Chinese had come up with an intelligent form of printing, but the trouble was that the Chinese language itself, was so complicated and had so many characters, that the earliest form of printing became a tiresome project and dwindled after a while. Come sixteenth century, a German businessman Johann Gutenberg invented a machine for a movable printing type, using the initial Chinese make up and succeeded. Because the English alphabet and language are not as intimidating, it worked out perfectly.

By the time Gutenberg printed the first 200 copied of the Bible in Latin and with illustrations, all of them had been pre-sold. By this time, word got around and people realized how important this invention was. After this, the Renaissance period was set into motion as scientific discoveries and theories started to be circulated. Up until the 19th century, this kind of printing wasn’t really modified. Now we live in the time of laser printing and other such advanced methods; printing has become one of our primary needs in this era. Even something such a business requires this; finding a printing press in Sharjah or anywhere in the UAE is in fact not that difficult anymore.

As science and technology progressed, our methods of doing things also evolved. Call it survival of the fittest or the evolution of the human brain, the fact of the matter is that we live in an era where most things exist at a much higher form. For this reason, companies have also have had to evolve their strategies; printing presses have become vital to conduct any kind of business. A printing press in Sharjah, for example, is a lucrative business and we should not discredit the importance of something like printing because we’re used to taking it for granted.