Class 10 History · Chapter 5 NotesPrint Culture and the Modern World

The earliest print technology developed in China, Japan and Korea as a system of hand printing. From AD 594, books in China were printed by rubbing paper against the inked surface of woodblocks. Since both sides of thin paper could not be printed, the Chinese made the accordion book, folded and stitched at the side. The imperial state was the major producer of printed material, mainly textbooks for civil service examinations. By the seventeenth century, as urban culture grew, merchants, women and courtesans began reading and publishing. Western mechanical presses were imported in the late nineteenth century, and Shanghai became the hub of the new print culture. In Japan, Buddhist missionaries from China introduced hand printing around AD 768-770. The Buddhist Diamond Sutra of AD 868 is the oldest Chinese printed book. In medieval Japan, books were cheap and abundant, and illustrated ukiyo prints by artists like Kitagawa Utamaro influenced European painters such as Manet, Monet and Van Gogh.

• Calligraphythe art of beautiful and stylised writing.
• Accordion booka Chinese book folded and stitched at the side.
• Diamond Sutra (AD 868)the oldest Chinese printed book.
• Ukiyopictures of the floating world, depicting ordinary urban life.

Chinese paper reached Europe in the eleventh century along the silk route, making manuscript production possible. In 1295, Marco Polo returned to Italy from China and brought knowledge of woodblock printing. Italians began producing woodblock books, and the technology spread across Europe. Handwritten manuscripts were expensive, fragile and slow to copy, so they could not meet the growing demand for books. The breakthrough came at Strasbourg, Germany, where Johann Gutenberg developed the first-known printing press in the 1430s. Gutenberg, a master goldsmith, adapted the olive press and used lead moulds to cast metal types for the letters of the alphabet. By 1448 he had perfected the system, and the first book he printed was the Bible, about 180 copies. The Gutenberg press could print 250 sheets on one side per hour. Between 1450 and 1550, presses were set up in most European countries, and book production boomed.

• Velluma parchment made from animal skin, used for luxury handwritten books.
• Platenthe board pressed onto the back of the paper to get the impression from the type.
• Compositorthe person who composes the text for printing.
• Galleya metal frame in which types are laid and the text composed.

The print revolution was not just a new way of producing books; it transformed people's relationship to information, knowledge and authority. Printing reduced the cost of books and multiple copies could be produced easily, so books flooded the market. Earlier, reading was restricted to elites and common people lived in a world of oral culture, hearing sacred texts, ballads and folk tales. Now a reading public emerged alongside the older hearing public. Since literacy rates were low, printers published popular ballads and folk tales with many illustrations, which were sung and recited in villages and taverns. Oral culture entered print and printed material was orally transmitted, blurring the line between the two. Print also made wide circulation of ideas possible, allowing even those who disagreed with authorities to print and circulate their views, which created both debate and fear.

• Ballada historical account or folk tale in verse, usually sung or recited.
• Tavernsplaces where people gathered to drink, eat, meet friends and exchange news.
• Reading publicpeople who read books individually and silently.
• Hearing publicpeople who collectively heard stories and performances.

Many people feared that easier access to printed words would spread rebellious and irreligious thoughts. In 1517, Martin Luther wrote the Ninety Five Theses criticising the practices of the Roman Catholic Church, and a printed copy was posted on a church door in Wittenberg. His writings were reproduced in vast numbers, leading to a division in the Church and the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Luther praised print as the ultimate gift of God. Print also stimulated individual interpretations of faith. In sixteenth-century Italy, Menocchio, a miller, reinterpreted the Bible and was executed by the Roman Church, which began an Index of Prohibited Books from 1558. Through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, literacy rose in Europe, creating a reading mania. Almanacs, chapbooks, the Bibliotheque Bleue, romances and periodicals reached ordinary readers, and the ideas of scientists and philosophers like Isaac Newton, Thomas Paine, Voltaire and Rousseau became widely accessible.

• Protestant Reformationa sixteenth-century movement to reform the Catholic Church.
• Inquisitiona former Roman Catholic court for identifying and punishing heretics.
• Hereticalbeliefs that do not follow the accepted teachings of the Church.
• Chapbooka pocket-size book sold by travelling pedlars called chapmen.
• Almanacan annual publication with astronomical data and everyday information.

By the mid-eighteenth century, many believed that books could spread progress and enlightenment, liberate society from despotism and tyranny, and herald the rule of reason. Louise-Sebastien Mercier declared that the printing press was the most powerful engine of progress and that public opinion would sweep despotism away. Historians have argued that print culture created conditions for the French Revolution through three types of arguments. First, print popularised Enlightenment thinkers who criticised tradition, superstition and despotism and attacked the sacred authority of the Church and the despotic power of the state. Second, print created a new culture of dialogue and debate in which all values and institutions were re-evaluated. Third, by the 1780s an outpouring of literature mocked the royalty and criticised their morality, and cartoons and caricatures suggested the monarchy cared only for pleasure while common people suffered. However, people also read monarchical and Church propaganda, so print did not directly shape minds but opened the possibility of thinking differently.

• Despotisma system of governance in which absolute power is exercised by an individual, unregulated by legal and constitutional checks.
• Enlightenment thinkers argued for the rule of reason rather than custom.
• Print helped spread ideas but people accepted some and rejected others.

The nineteenth century saw vast leaps in mass literacy in Europe, bringing large numbers of new readers among children, women and workers. As primary education became compulsory from the late nineteenth century, children became an important category of readers and school textbooks became critical for the publishing industry. A children's press was set up in France in 1857. The Grimm Brothers in Germany compiled traditional folk tales gathered from peasants and published a collection in 1812, editing out anything considered unsuitable for children. Women became important as readers and writers. Penny magazines were meant for women, and novelists like Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters and George Eliot defined a new type of woman with will, determination and the power to think. Lending libraries educated white-collar workers, artisans and lower-middle-class people, and self-educated working-class people wrote political tracts and autobiographies.

• Children's press set up in France in 1857.
• Grimm Brothers published their folk tale collection in 1812.
• Penny Magazine was published in England between 1832 and 1835.
• Lending libraries in England educated workers and lower-middle-class people.

By the late eighteenth century, the press came to be made out of metal. Through the nineteenth century, there were a series of further innovations in printing technology. By the mid-nineteenth century, Richard M. Hoe of New York had perfected the power-driven cylindrical press, capable of printing 8,000 sheets per hour, which was particularly useful for newspapers. In the late nineteenth century, the offset press was developed, which could print up to six colours at a time. From the turn of the twentieth century, electrically operated presses accelerated printing operations. Methods of feeding paper improved, the quality of plates became better, and automatic paper reels and photoelectric controls of the colour register were introduced. Publishers also developed new selling strategies. Nineteenth-century periodicals serialised important novels, and in the 1920s in England popular works were sold in cheap series called the Shilling Series. The dust cover or book jacket is a twentieth-century innovation, and during the Great Depression of the 1930s publishers brought out cheap paperback editions.

• Power-driven cylindrical pressperfected by Richard M. Hoe, printed 8,000 sheets per hour.
• Offset presscould print up to six colours at a time.
• Shilling Seriescheap series of popular works sold in 1920s England.
• Dust cover or book jacketa twentieth-century innovation.

India had a rich tradition of handwritten manuscripts in Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian and various vernacular languages. Manuscripts were copied on palm leaves or handmade paper, sometimes beautifully illustrated, and were pressed between wooden covers or sewn together. They continued to be produced till well after the introduction of print, down to the late nineteenth century. However, manuscripts were expensive and fragile, had to be handled carefully, and could not be read easily because the script was written in different styles. So they were not widely used in everyday life. Even though pre-colonial Bengal had an extensive network of village primary schools, students often did not read texts; they only learnt to write, as teachers dictated portions from memory. The printing press first came to Goa with Portuguese missionaries in the mid-sixteenth century. Jesuit priests learnt Konkani and printed several tracts, and by 1674 about 50 books had been printed in Konkani and Kanara languages. Catholic priests printed the first Tamil book in 1579 at Cochin, and the first Malayalam book in 1713. By 1710, Dutch Protestant missionaries had printed 32 Tamil texts.

• Manuscripts were copied on palm leaves or handmade paper.
• Portuguese missionaries brought the printing press to Goa in the mid-sixteenth century.
• First Tamil book printed in 1579 at Cochin; first Malayalam book in 1713.
• By 1674, about 50 books had been printed in Konkani and Kanara languages.

The English language press did not grow in India till quite late, even though the East India Company began importing presses from the late seventeenth century. From 1780, James Augustus Hickey began to edit the Bengal Gazette, a weekly magazine described as a commercial paper open to all but influenced by none. Hickey published advertisements and gossip about Company officials, and Governor-General Warren Hastings persecuted him. By the close of the eighteenth century, a number of newspapers and journals appeared, and Indians too began publishing newspapers. The first was the weekly Bengal Gazette brought out by Gangadhar Bhattacharya, who was close to Rammohun Roy. From the early nineteenth century, intense debates around religious issues were carried out in public and in print. Printed tracts and newspapers spread new ideas and shaped the nature of the debate. In Bengal, Rammohun Roy published the Sambad Kaumudi from 1821, and the Hindu orthodoxy commissioned the Samachar Chandrika to oppose his opinions. From 1822, two Persian newspapers were published, Jam-i-Jahan Nama and Shamsul Akhbar, and a Gujarati newspaper, the Bombay Samachar, appeared. In north India, the ulama used cheap lithographic presses to publish Persian and Urdu translations of holy scriptures and religious newspapers. The Deoband Seminary, founded in 1867, published thousands of fatwas. Among Hindus, print encouraged the reading of religious texts in vernacular languages. The first printed edition of the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas came out from Calcutta in 1810, and by the mid-nineteenth century cheap lithographic editions flooded north Indian markets. From the 1880s, the Naval Kishore Press at Lucknow and the Shri Venkateshwar Press in Bombay published numerous religious texts. Print also connected communities and people in different parts of India, and newspapers conveyed news from one place to another, creating pan-Indian identities.

• Ulamalegal scholars of Islam and the sharia.
• Fatwaa legal pronouncement on Islamic law usually given by a mufti.
• Sambad Kaumudi published by Rammohun Roy from 1821.
• Deoband Seminary founded in 1867.
• First printed edition of Ramcharitmanas came out from Calcutta in 1810.

Printing created an appetite for new kinds of writing. The novel, which had developed in Europe, acquired distinctively Indian forms and styles, and other forms like lyrics, short stories and essays entered the world of reading. By the end of the nineteenth century, a new visual culture was taking shape. Painters like Raja Ravi Varma produced images for mass circulation, and cheap prints and calendars were bought even by the poor. By the 1870s, caricatures and cartoons were being published in journals and newspapers. Women's reading increased enormously in middle-class homes, and many journals carried writings by women explaining why women should be educated. But not all families were liberal. Conservative Hindus believed that a literate girl would be widowed, and Muslims feared that educated women would be corrupted by reading Urdu romances. Some women defied these prohibitions. Rashsundari Debi learnt to read in the secrecy of her kitchen and later wrote Amar Jiban, published in 1876, the first full-length autobiography in Bengali. From the 1860s, Bengali women like Kailashbashini Debi wrote books highlighting the experiences of women. In the 1880s, Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai wrote about the miserable lives of upper-caste Hindu women, especially widows. In Punjab, Ram Chaddha published the fast-selling Istri Dharm Vichar to teach women how to be obedient wives. In Bengal, the Battala area of central Calcutta was devoted to printing popular books. For poor people, very cheap small books were sold at crossroads in nineteenth-century Madras towns, and public libraries were set up from the early twentieth century. From the late nineteenth century, issues of caste discrimination began to be written about. Jyotiba Phule wrote Gulamgiri in 1871, and in the twentieth century B.R. Ambedkar and E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker, better known as Periyar, wrote powerfully on caste. Kashibaba, a Kanpur millworker, wrote and published Chhote Aur Bade Ka Sawal in 1938, and the poems of another Kanpur millworker, Sudarshan Chakr, were published in Sacchi Kavitayan. By the 1930s, Bangalore cotton millworkers set up libraries to educate themselves.

• Raja Ravi Varma produced images for mass circulation.
• Rashsundari Debi wrote Amar Jiban, published in 1876.
• Jyotiba Phule wrote Gulamgiri in 1871.
• Kashibaba wrote Chhote Aur Bade Ka Sawal in 1938.
• Sudarshan Chakr's poems were published in Sacchi Kavitayan.