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The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe
What difference did printing make? Although the importance of the advent of printing for the Western world has long been recognized, it was Elizabeth Eisenstein in her monumental, two-volume work, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, who provided the first full-scale treatment of the subject. This illustrated and abridged edition provides a stimulating survey of the communications revolution of the fifteenth century. After summarizing the initial changes, and introducing the establishment of printing shops, it considers how printing effected three major cultural movements: the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the rise of modern science. First Edition Hb (1984) 0-521-25858-8 First Edition Pb (1984) 0-521-27735-3
406 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
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About the author
Elizabeth L. Eisenstein
10 books15 followersElizabeth Lewisohn Eisenstein was an American historian of the French Revolution and early 19th century France. She was best known for her work on the history of early printing, writing on the transition in media between the era of 'manuscript culture' and that of 'print culture', as well as the role of the printing press in effecting broad cultural change in Western civilization.
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November 13, 2019In this autumn season I was at first inclined to see this book as a belligerent boxing squirrel keen to defend its gathered nuts against all comers, but then it struck me that it was more of a kangaroo, moving rapidly across the landscape, pausing to box and kick at rivals before bounding ever onwards.
This is an abridged version of Eisenstein's two volume The Printing Press as an agent of Change, the chief difference she tells us, is that the two volume version has the footnotes. Her story is that she was interested in the impact of the printing press and decided to review the literature, found that there wasn't any, so set to on writing her own. This book dates to 1983 and the two volume original to 1979, professors we are told now may use word processors to write justified text at home, yet several reviews point out the relevance of Eisenstein's thought on early printing to the internet age. I'd agree the parallels are there: essentially the internet isn't particularly interesting or distinct, just more.
Other reviewers point out that it isn't a friendly text, it will not give you the cosy chair and pour you some tea. Reading it for a second time now I'd say the ten or so years of reading generally that I done (or maybe fifteen or twenty) since I last turned the pages of this book make quite a difference.
The book runs from the birth of printing into the late seventeenth century, so she is moving fast through time, and it is not a history of printing as such, she not not pause to note the developing technology and skill sets or the spread of technology, she interested in the meta issues of that history and as such she takes no prisoners, and she'll happily leave the reader for dead given a half chance.
For me this book is strongly related to another: From Memory to Written Record, which led me to the other I don't know, both feature the other in their bibliographies, which can happen once you get into multiple editions. So there are two giant mental shifts to keep in mind : one a shift from oral to written cultures, and the second from a written culture to a print culture. For Eisenstein print culture is so natural to us that we struggle to understand the fragility of written cultures and the nature of oral cultures.
For Eisenstein above all The Renaissance can be distinguished from the 12th century renaissance and the Carolingian Renaissance because of printing which sustains the process and in a way makes it permanent, the Renaissance she implies still isn't finished yet - and isn't that a cheering thought. Likewise Luther's reform movement had a different impact than that of Jan Hus for her because of printing. Cautiously, I might venture to observe that in both cases there might be some other important factors at play too, but as far as broad brush sweeping explanations go her position is a very powerful one in my opinion. Of the impact of print culture she observes these crop up in contradictory pairs.
The most important is that she has a theory of degradation. In a written culture as texts are copied errors creep in, the transition to print made this better and worse, immediately there are standardised errors effecting hundreds or thousands of books, for example the so called wicked Bible- but this means for the first time that there can be printed errata, and these can be corrected in future editions. In the old scribal culture each error was individual, now there is potential for bigger errors but also for correction in an iterative process, woodcuts would literally degrade through use producing blurrier images, but also could be recut, in the scribal culture the maps had been separated from editions of Ptolemy ,while diagrams had been separated from Euclid. With print culture these could be reunited, spread and iteratively improved upon which for Eisenstein gives rises to a scientific culture as observation and observed phenomena challenge the authority of received texts (which without their graphics could be fiendishly difficult to understand).
At first this works to create an international Republic of learning through Latin scholarship, but this is challenged by it's contradicting twin - the rise of the vernacular, which itself wipes out, or tries to get rid of, linguistic diversity within a given territory - once you get printed vernacular English, French, Spanish etc etc you get a 'standard' "correct" form of that language developing where previously there was wide diversity, so for Eisenstein print culture has an important role to play in the development of nationalism and national cultures.
If scientific thinking and ideas could be spread more widely so to could mysticism and obscurantism (just take a look round a bookshop to confirm this - or your nearest internet), but also even mysticism becomes standardised, one doesn't just have a mystical experience, one learns from printed books what a mystical experience is like first - though I think this was long implicit in Christian culture, saint's lives are exemplary in precisely that way ie your mystic experience will conform to a type which can be discussed in a book see for example Ignatius of Loyola's spiritual exercises - if you follow his advise and breathing exercises you too can experience the vision of uncreated light which the Apostles beheld at Tabor.
One can aim to get back to a pure text, whether Euclid or the Bible through scholarship so the reader can have an ever more direct relationship with a text on one hand but one of the effects of the scholarship is to build in distance between reader and text, and in the extreme case of the Bible the purest conceivable text is still remote because it was a written account of oral transmissions. So at the same moment the scholarship holds you at an arms length from the text, one is not allowed to have an authentic 'off-piste' relationship with the text, it must be mediated by an expert. Or in the case of classical texts since the original texts are long since lost, a community of scholars must rely on best judgement to recreate a best possible text from copies.
The papacy sought to ban and control the spread of offending material - but this could function as a form of advertising. Eisenstein points out that while in Italy people could write and publish on forbidden topics it was hard for them to form scholarly networks or communities while they could plug into those in Protestant regions. There is she stresses a difference between a work being published in Leiden or London because a printer thinks it might sell and being printed in Vienna because a Jesuit has licensed it.
Print culture was international - Polygot Bibles obliged scholars and printers to work with Greeks and even Jews, but also created national cultures - the translation of Bibles a key moment in particular in the formation of a legitimate vernacular print culture but also mass consumption religious works could tap into Catholic readerships too (lives of the saints, guides for writing sermons and so forth).
She raises many questions, more than she troubles to answer, I was interested by her wondering about who exactly were reading early books, vernacular religious books might be aimed more at priests and preachers than lay readers for instance, manuals on book keeping at teachers looking to teach book keeping more effectively rather than at merchants and so on - as it happens my cousin uses you-tube the same way, watching brick laying or plumbing videos so that he can teach rather than to practise such skills, in effect what such videos or books really are offering is the methodology of teaching a subject - this is what the student needs to know, or how they can absorb the material.
A remorseless, clever book, one for re-reading.
This is an abridged version of Eisenstein's two volume The Printing Press as an agent of Change, the chief difference she tells us, is that the two volume version has the footnotes. Her story is that she was interested in the impact of the printing press and decided to review the literature, found that there wasn't any, so set to on writing her own. This book dates to 1983 and the two volume original to 1979, professors we are told now may use word processors to write justified text at home, yet several reviews point out the relevance of Eisenstein's thought on early printing to the internet age. I'd agree the parallels are there: essentially the internet isn't particularly interesting or distinct, just more.
Other reviewers point out that it isn't a friendly text, it will not give you the cosy chair and pour you some tea. Reading it for a second time now I'd say the ten or so years of reading generally that I done (or maybe fifteen or twenty) since I last turned the pages of this book make quite a difference.
The book runs from the birth of printing into the late seventeenth century, so she is moving fast through time, and it is not a history of printing as such, she not not pause to note the developing technology and skill sets or the spread of technology, she interested in the meta issues of that history and as such she takes no prisoners, and she'll happily leave the reader for dead given a half chance.
For me this book is strongly related to another: From Memory to Written Record, which led me to the other I don't know, both feature the other in their bibliographies, which can happen once you get into multiple editions. So there are two giant mental shifts to keep in mind : one a shift from oral to written cultures, and the second from a written culture to a print culture. For Eisenstein print culture is so natural to us that we struggle to understand the fragility of written cultures and the nature of oral cultures.
For Eisenstein above all The Renaissance can be distinguished from the 12th century renaissance and the Carolingian Renaissance because of printing which sustains the process and in a way makes it permanent, the Renaissance she implies still isn't finished yet - and isn't that a cheering thought. Likewise Luther's reform movement had a different impact than that of Jan Hus for her because of printing. Cautiously, I might venture to observe that in both cases there might be some other important factors at play too, but as far as broad brush sweeping explanations go her position is a very powerful one in my opinion. Of the impact of print culture she observes these crop up in contradictory pairs.
The most important is that she has a theory of degradation. In a written culture as texts are copied errors creep in, the transition to print made this better and worse, immediately there are standardised errors effecting hundreds or thousands of books, for example the so called wicked Bible- but this means for the first time that there can be printed errata, and these can be corrected in future editions. In the old scribal culture each error was individual, now there is potential for bigger errors but also for correction in an iterative process, woodcuts would literally degrade through use producing blurrier images, but also could be recut, in the scribal culture the maps had been separated from editions of Ptolemy ,while diagrams had been separated from Euclid. With print culture these could be reunited, spread and iteratively improved upon which for Eisenstein gives rises to a scientific culture as observation and observed phenomena challenge the authority of received texts (which without their graphics could be fiendishly difficult to understand).
At first this works to create an international Republic of learning through Latin scholarship, but this is challenged by it's contradicting twin - the rise of the vernacular, which itself wipes out, or tries to get rid of, linguistic diversity within a given territory - once you get printed vernacular English, French, Spanish etc etc you get a 'standard' "correct" form of that language developing where previously there was wide diversity, so for Eisenstein print culture has an important role to play in the development of nationalism and national cultures.
If scientific thinking and ideas could be spread more widely so to could mysticism and obscurantism (just take a look round a bookshop to confirm this - or your nearest internet), but also even mysticism becomes standardised, one doesn't just have a mystical experience, one learns from printed books what a mystical experience is like first - though I think this was long implicit in Christian culture, saint's lives are exemplary in precisely that way ie your mystic experience will conform to a type which can be discussed in a book see for example Ignatius of Loyola's spiritual exercises - if you follow his advise and breathing exercises you too can experience the vision of uncreated light which the Apostles beheld at Tabor.
One can aim to get back to a pure text, whether Euclid or the Bible through scholarship so the reader can have an ever more direct relationship with a text on one hand but one of the effects of the scholarship is to build in distance between reader and text, and in the extreme case of the Bible the purest conceivable text is still remote because it was a written account of oral transmissions. So at the same moment the scholarship holds you at an arms length from the text, one is not allowed to have an authentic 'off-piste' relationship with the text, it must be mediated by an expert. Or in the case of classical texts since the original texts are long since lost, a community of scholars must rely on best judgement to recreate a best possible text from copies.
The papacy sought to ban and control the spread of offending material - but this could function as a form of advertising. Eisenstein points out that while in Italy people could write and publish on forbidden topics it was hard for them to form scholarly networks or communities while they could plug into those in Protestant regions. There is she stresses a difference between a work being published in Leiden or London because a printer thinks it might sell and being printed in Vienna because a Jesuit has licensed it.
Print culture was international - Polygot Bibles obliged scholars and printers to work with Greeks and even Jews, but also created national cultures - the translation of Bibles a key moment in particular in the formation of a legitimate vernacular print culture but also mass consumption religious works could tap into Catholic readerships too (lives of the saints, guides for writing sermons and so forth).
She raises many questions, more than she troubles to answer, I was interested by her wondering about who exactly were reading early books, vernacular religious books might be aimed more at priests and preachers than lay readers for instance, manuals on book keeping at teachers looking to teach book keeping more effectively rather than at merchants and so on - as it happens my cousin uses you-tube the same way, watching brick laying or plumbing videos so that he can teach rather than to practise such skills, in effect what such videos or books really are offering is the methodology of teaching a subject - this is what the student needs to know, or how they can absorb the material.
A remorseless, clever book, one for re-reading.
September 21, 2022
What threatened the very foundations of the Church was the new concept of truth proclaimed by Galileo. Alongside the truth of revelation comes now an independent and original truth of nature. This truth is revealed not in God’s words but in his work; it is not based on the testimony of Scripture or tradition but is visible to us at all times. But it is understandable only to those who know nature’s handwriting and can decipher her text…Revelation by means of the sacred word can never achieve such precision, for words are always ambiguous. Their meaning must always be given them by men. [But in nature] the whole plan of the universe lies before us.
- Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment
This book examines the cultural and intellectual changes brought about by the shift from the scribal culture of hand written manuscripts to printing via mechanical presses. It does not concern itself with the technical evolution of printing, so the reader will not learn about cutting dies or setting type, or any of the many incremental changes that improved printed books after their introduction by Gutenberg. The book was published in 1983 and is an abridged version of the author’s 1979 The Printing Press as an agent of Change.
The first thing to consider is the disruption that printing introduced to the cozy world of manuscript copying, making businessmen out of scribes, making them have to worry about which books to print based on expectations of how well they would sell, managing a workforce with technical skills who could easily leave in search of better pay or working conditions, coordinating the efforts of the printers with paper makers, illustrators, and binders, and always being concerned about their books incurring the wrath of civil or religious authorities. “It has been suggested, indeed, that the mere act of setting up a press in a monastery or in affiliation with a religious order was a source of disturbance, bringing ‘a multitude of worries about money and property’ into space previously reserved for meditation and good works” (p. 28-29)
Although we tend to talk of printing as a revolution, it was a slow motion revolution at first, affecting the lives of only a small percentage of the population. “When one recalls scribal functions performed by Roman slaves or later by monks, lay brothers, clerks, and notaries, one may conclude that literacy had never been congruent with elite social status. One may also guess that it was more compatible with sedentary occupations than with the riding and hunting favored by many squires and lords.” (p. 30) Additionally, not only were the vast majority of people illiterate, but the large number of spoken dialects meant that many people who could read, but not read Latin, got no value from most printed books.
As printing spread however, and literacy increased, a number of important second and third order effects appeared, in the same way that the internet, originally just a system for exchanging information between computer networks, has changed the way people save, share, and search for information, to the point that going back to the old ways of doing things would be a significant hardship. “[P]rinted reference works encouraged a repeated recourse to alphabetical order. Ever since the sixteenth century, memorizing a fixed sequence of discrete letters represented by meaningless symbols and sounds has been the gateway to book learning for all children in the West.” (p. 64) Furthermore, “Increasing familiarity with regularly numbered pages, punctuation marks, section breaks, running heads, indexes, and so forth helped to reorder the thought of all readers, whatever their profession or craft. The use of Arabic numbers for pagination suggests how the most inconspicuous innovation could have weighty consequences – in this case, a more accurate indexing, annotation, and cross referencing resulted.” (p.72)
This leads to one of the author’s main points: that printing arrested the inevitable decay of information that has always been present in written manuscripts, where every new work copied the errors of previous versions and then added some new ones of its own. In Misquoting Jesus, biblical scholar Bart Ehrman writes, “At last count, more than fifty-seven hundred Greek manuscripts have been discovered and catalogued….There are more variations among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament.”
Printing allowed for the creation of standardized texts, and just as important was the creation of reference libraries, so scholars no longer had to undertake arduous journeys to various monasteries to view manuscripts of questionable reliability. The sixteen hundreds saw enormous advances in science and mathematics, made possible by easy access to the work of other writers. Print shops spread widely, forcing printers to seek out competitive advantages that would help their books sell, so they encouraged collaborative efforts, actively soliciting readers to send in corrections and supplemental materials. Maps and books on natural science benefited greatly from these efforts, and new, expanded editions came out regularly.
One of printing’s greatest impacts was to the Reformation, allowing Luther to spread his ideas far and wide. By the time he wrote his 95 theses in 1517 (which he may or may not have nailed to the door of the church in Wittenberg – the story first appears decades later and has an air of mythologizing about it) the printing press was already seventy years old, and literacy was increasing fast, so his writings were able to reach a large audience ready to hear what he had to say. When Luther published the theses and offered to debate them, no one responded, but by having them printed, in both Latin and German, he was in effect addressing the whole literate world, galvanizing support for his positions and starting a revolution in the church which reverberates to this day.
Other changes were coming as well. The spread of printing, especially in the vernacular languages of Europe, brought with it questions of citizenship and belonging. Previously, when Latin was the common language of scholars, one’s nation was largely irrelevant, but now the nation-state started to become as important as religion. “It is no accident that nationalism and mass literacy have developed together. The two processes have been linked ever since Europeans ceased to speak the same language when citing their Scriptures or saying their prayers.” (p. 162)
Printing had been invented in Germany, but within a few decades its center of gravity had shifted south, to Italy and especially Venice, with new Roman typefaces replacing heavy Gothic ones, and curated editions of classical works were brought out by renowned printers under the direction of top scholars. This did not last, however. As Catholicism’s Counter Reformation took hold, it narrowed the boundaries of what could be printed, and enforced them with prison, confiscation of assets, and the dreaded Inquisition. In 1616 Copernicus’s work was added to the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, and in 1633 Galileo’s work followed (Galileo was not removed from the Index until 1824).
Of course, astute printers in Protestant lands used the Index as a marketing tool, increasing books’ appeal by letting readers know they were prohibited to Catholics. These books were still widely smuggled into Catholic countries, but any works that elaborated upon them had to be published anonymously or sent to Protestant countries for printing, with the chance that their authorship would be traced back to them and they would be punished. As a result the center of gravity of printing shifted north again, and by the seventeenth century was firmly established in cities like Amsterdam. Catholic countries became bastions of orthodoxy at the same time they became backwaters of science.
Science was the big beneficiary of printing, but religion was also forced to reckon with the changes brought by the new technology. It is one of the ironies of the times that as the need to master classical languages became less and less important for the study of science, it became more so for biblical studies. As scholars gained access to printed versions of ancient manuscripts, they began to pry biblical scholarship from the hands of the theologians. They caused great consternation by saying that the Jerome translation of the Bible, the official one of the Catholic church, was deficient in many ways, and that church dogma based on it was on shaky ground. The notion of the Bible as the infallible word of god had taken a blow from which it would never recover, as the quotation with which this review starts clearly shows.
This book isn’t always easy reading, and since it is an abridgment some gaps appear. For instance, Giorgio de Santillana’s The Crime of Galileo is cited without introducing the author or naming the book. I just happen to have read it (q.v.) and recognized it. In the original two-volume edition de Santillana is probably properly introduced before being quoted.
Nevertheless, this book is thoughtful and worth reading. We all know that printing changed the world, but may not have recognized just how much of an impact it had on culture, society, and the advancement of science. It is not too much of a stretch to say that we think differently than people did in the age of the scribes, that we have enlarged the universe of our minds just as our minds have expanded our understanding of the known universe.
- Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment
This book examines the cultural and intellectual changes brought about by the shift from the scribal culture of hand written manuscripts to printing via mechanical presses. It does not concern itself with the technical evolution of printing, so the reader will not learn about cutting dies or setting type, or any of the many incremental changes that improved printed books after their introduction by Gutenberg. The book was published in 1983 and is an abridged version of the author’s 1979 The Printing Press as an agent of Change.
The first thing to consider is the disruption that printing introduced to the cozy world of manuscript copying, making businessmen out of scribes, making them have to worry about which books to print based on expectations of how well they would sell, managing a workforce with technical skills who could easily leave in search of better pay or working conditions, coordinating the efforts of the printers with paper makers, illustrators, and binders, and always being concerned about their books incurring the wrath of civil or religious authorities. “It has been suggested, indeed, that the mere act of setting up a press in a monastery or in affiliation with a religious order was a source of disturbance, bringing ‘a multitude of worries about money and property’ into space previously reserved for meditation and good works” (p. 28-29)
Although we tend to talk of printing as a revolution, it was a slow motion revolution at first, affecting the lives of only a small percentage of the population. “When one recalls scribal functions performed by Roman slaves or later by monks, lay brothers, clerks, and notaries, one may conclude that literacy had never been congruent with elite social status. One may also guess that it was more compatible with sedentary occupations than with the riding and hunting favored by many squires and lords.” (p. 30) Additionally, not only were the vast majority of people illiterate, but the large number of spoken dialects meant that many people who could read, but not read Latin, got no value from most printed books.
As printing spread however, and literacy increased, a number of important second and third order effects appeared, in the same way that the internet, originally just a system for exchanging information between computer networks, has changed the way people save, share, and search for information, to the point that going back to the old ways of doing things would be a significant hardship. “[P]rinted reference works encouraged a repeated recourse to alphabetical order. Ever since the sixteenth century, memorizing a fixed sequence of discrete letters represented by meaningless symbols and sounds has been the gateway to book learning for all children in the West.” (p. 64) Furthermore, “Increasing familiarity with regularly numbered pages, punctuation marks, section breaks, running heads, indexes, and so forth helped to reorder the thought of all readers, whatever their profession or craft. The use of Arabic numbers for pagination suggests how the most inconspicuous innovation could have weighty consequences – in this case, a more accurate indexing, annotation, and cross referencing resulted.” (p.72)
This leads to one of the author’s main points: that printing arrested the inevitable decay of information that has always been present in written manuscripts, where every new work copied the errors of previous versions and then added some new ones of its own. In Misquoting Jesus, biblical scholar Bart Ehrman writes, “At last count, more than fifty-seven hundred Greek manuscripts have been discovered and catalogued….There are more variations among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament.”
Printing allowed for the creation of standardized texts, and just as important was the creation of reference libraries, so scholars no longer had to undertake arduous journeys to various monasteries to view manuscripts of questionable reliability. The sixteen hundreds saw enormous advances in science and mathematics, made possible by easy access to the work of other writers. Print shops spread widely, forcing printers to seek out competitive advantages that would help their books sell, so they encouraged collaborative efforts, actively soliciting readers to send in corrections and supplemental materials. Maps and books on natural science benefited greatly from these efforts, and new, expanded editions came out regularly.
One of printing’s greatest impacts was to the Reformation, allowing Luther to spread his ideas far and wide. By the time he wrote his 95 theses in 1517 (which he may or may not have nailed to the door of the church in Wittenberg – the story first appears decades later and has an air of mythologizing about it) the printing press was already seventy years old, and literacy was increasing fast, so his writings were able to reach a large audience ready to hear what he had to say. When Luther published the theses and offered to debate them, no one responded, but by having them printed, in both Latin and German, he was in effect addressing the whole literate world, galvanizing support for his positions and starting a revolution in the church which reverberates to this day.
Other changes were coming as well. The spread of printing, especially in the vernacular languages of Europe, brought with it questions of citizenship and belonging. Previously, when Latin was the common language of scholars, one’s nation was largely irrelevant, but now the nation-state started to become as important as religion. “It is no accident that nationalism and mass literacy have developed together. The two processes have been linked ever since Europeans ceased to speak the same language when citing their Scriptures or saying their prayers.” (p. 162)
Printing had been invented in Germany, but within a few decades its center of gravity had shifted south, to Italy and especially Venice, with new Roman typefaces replacing heavy Gothic ones, and curated editions of classical works were brought out by renowned printers under the direction of top scholars. This did not last, however. As Catholicism’s Counter Reformation took hold, it narrowed the boundaries of what could be printed, and enforced them with prison, confiscation of assets, and the dreaded Inquisition. In 1616 Copernicus’s work was added to the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, and in 1633 Galileo’s work followed (Galileo was not removed from the Index until 1824).
Of course, astute printers in Protestant lands used the Index as a marketing tool, increasing books’ appeal by letting readers know they were prohibited to Catholics. These books were still widely smuggled into Catholic countries, but any works that elaborated upon them had to be published anonymously or sent to Protestant countries for printing, with the chance that their authorship would be traced back to them and they would be punished. As a result the center of gravity of printing shifted north again, and by the seventeenth century was firmly established in cities like Amsterdam. Catholic countries became bastions of orthodoxy at the same time they became backwaters of science.
Science was the big beneficiary of printing, but religion was also forced to reckon with the changes brought by the new technology. It is one of the ironies of the times that as the need to master classical languages became less and less important for the study of science, it became more so for biblical studies. As scholars gained access to printed versions of ancient manuscripts, they began to pry biblical scholarship from the hands of the theologians. They caused great consternation by saying that the Jerome translation of the Bible, the official one of the Catholic church, was deficient in many ways, and that church dogma based on it was on shaky ground. The notion of the Bible as the infallible word of god had taken a blow from which it would never recover, as the quotation with which this review starts clearly shows.
This book isn’t always easy reading, and since it is an abridgment some gaps appear. For instance, Giorgio de Santillana’s The Crime of Galileo is cited without introducing the author or naming the book. I just happen to have read it (q.v.) and recognized it. In the original two-volume edition de Santillana is probably properly introduced before being quoted.
Nevertheless, this book is thoughtful and worth reading. We all know that printing changed the world, but may not have recognized just how much of an impact it had on culture, society, and the advancement of science. It is not too much of a stretch to say that we think differently than people did in the age of the scribes, that we have enlarged the universe of our minds just as our minds have expanded our understanding of the known universe.
August 30, 2009
Really enjoyed this, and I see why it became a must-read for the digerati.
The book is fueled by the frustration that, on the one hand, historians say that printing led to immense changes in Europea's culture, and on the other hand, ignore the specifics of printing's impact in more detailed histories of the Reformation, later Renaissance, and scientific revolution.
What makes it so thought provoking is that she has a real sensibility to network effects (avant la lettre), understanding how books and printed matter provided the material for a different sorts of interaction, and wider networks of interaction, between people in the Republic of Letters. This approach or point-of-view is what is generalizable to thinking about the impact of the Internet.
Of course I also loved the details on the strategies of the earliest publisher/printers, including Platinus (his prints now on show at Singapore's National Museum) and Peter Schoeffer. (Is it a sign??)
The book is fueled by the frustration that, on the one hand, historians say that printing led to immense changes in Europea's culture, and on the other hand, ignore the specifics of printing's impact in more detailed histories of the Reformation, later Renaissance, and scientific revolution.
What makes it so thought provoking is that she has a real sensibility to network effects (avant la lettre), understanding how books and printed matter provided the material for a different sorts of interaction, and wider networks of interaction, between people in the Republic of Letters. This approach or point-of-view is what is generalizable to thinking about the impact of the Internet.
Of course I also loved the details on the strategies of the earliest publisher/printers, including Platinus (his prints now on show at Singapore's National Museum) and Peter Schoeffer. (Is it a sign??)
July 1, 2019
Harry Truman once said "The only thing new in this world is the history you don't know." He was guided throughout his political career by the lessons of history, a subject in which he was very well read. And studying history shows us how much our current issues can be better understood by their antecedents. As Mark Twain said, "History doesn't repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes." Why does any of this matter? Well, right now we are going through a revolution in media known as the Internet. This is a topic about which many learned books will be written, and some of them will even get parts of the story right. But I think we can get some idea of what is happening by looking at the last real revolution in media, which was the invention of the printing press. I'm not alone in thinking this, of course. Jeff Jarvis recently published a monograph (available as a Kindle single) called Gutenberg the Geek that I think got some parts of story right. But I wanted to dive a little more deeply, which is why I read this book.
Professor Eisenstein has made a life study of this topic, and this book presents much of that research. As a word of warning, it is written as a scholarly work, so expect to work at it a little if you decide to pick it up. But it is definitely rewarding. I read it to get a sense of what might happen in our future, so I am going to focus on that as an exercise in "lessons learned".
The first thing I noticed is that "crowd sourcing" (e.g. Wikipedia) is not something brand new. The early printer/publishers were eager to solicit corrections and suggestions from the readers. The very first printed works were based on hand-copied manuscripts, and the process of hand-copying lead to inevitable corruption as every mistake made by a particular copier survived into all subsequent copies based on that manuscript, and of course even more mistakes got added by each subsequent copier. By the time of the printing press, in the 15th century, no two copies of any work were the same. But by printing mass quantities and distributing them widely, these variants could be compared, scholars could focus on the discrepancies, and mistakes could be fixed. And with printing allowing for mass duplication of identical copies, the process of textual drift got stopped in its tracks. The idea that with many eyeballs all bugs are shallow really begins in the 15th and 16th century with mass printing.
Another development from printing that we are still dealing with is the invention of "Intellectual Property". In the days of hand copying this concept did not exist. Most of the works people cared about were from antiquity anyway, and copying them to preserve them was a sacred trust. But with the development of a mass market for books, more new works were being created, and financial compensation became an issue. By 1500 this was already underway, and what been a commons was subject to an "enclosure" movement. One of the ironies is that a pioneer printer who was part of this process, Louis Elsevier, gave his name to a modern publishing company that is now being attacked by scientists for locking up what they believe should be a common. (Note, the modern company is not the legal continuation of the house of Elsevier. But they took the name of their countryman in recognition of his fame in printing history).
The religious wars are intimately linked to the rise of printing. On the one hand, it is difficult to see the Protestant Reformation succeeding if printing had not been available, since previous "heretics" had been rather easily suppressed by the institutional power of the Catholic Church. But with the ability to spread their tracts all over Europe in mere weeks this revolution could not be stopped. But it is equally clear that the Reformation had much to do with the success of the Printing revolution. Protestant Princes sheltered and supported the printers who published many notable scientific works. Interestingly, they did so not because of any commitment to free speech or freedom of thought, but primarily to antagonize the Catholic Church. In fact, the well known Index Liborum Prohibitorum (i.e. Index of Prohibited Books) compiled by the Catholic Church became the favorite source for printers in Protestant countries who were looking for works to print. Indeed, by specifying exactly which lines on which pages it found objectionable, the Catholic Church provided an invaluable guide to the printers as to exactly which passages to highlight and mass duplicate! I find it interesting that at the present time the situation has nearly reversed, with the fundamentalist Protestants opposing science and the Catholic Church mostly accepting science. But the lesson I draw form this history is two-fold: First, as during the Reformation, you cannot stop ideas from spreading. With the Internet, instead of traveling in weeks, an idea can travel at the speed of light. And the more you try to prohibit something, the more attractive it becomes.
The final idea I want to highlight is the this revolution did not take place primarily in the large nations, but in the small principalities. It was the smaller areas that lead the way, and I think you can see why when you consider how revolutionary printing was. Large nations by their nature resist revolutions because they have nothing to gain from them and much to lose. The printing revolution succeeded in large part because no one was in a position to stop it. And that is significant when you look at the desperate attempts of nations (and even the U.N.) to take control of the Internet. Whether they can do it at this point is a question for another day, but I think it is clear that they should be resisted as much as possible.
Professor Eisenstein has made a life study of this topic, and this book presents much of that research. As a word of warning, it is written as a scholarly work, so expect to work at it a little if you decide to pick it up. But it is definitely rewarding. I read it to get a sense of what might happen in our future, so I am going to focus on that as an exercise in "lessons learned".
The first thing I noticed is that "crowd sourcing" (e.g. Wikipedia) is not something brand new. The early printer/publishers were eager to solicit corrections and suggestions from the readers. The very first printed works were based on hand-copied manuscripts, and the process of hand-copying lead to inevitable corruption as every mistake made by a particular copier survived into all subsequent copies based on that manuscript, and of course even more mistakes got added by each subsequent copier. By the time of the printing press, in the 15th century, no two copies of any work were the same. But by printing mass quantities and distributing them widely, these variants could be compared, scholars could focus on the discrepancies, and mistakes could be fixed. And with printing allowing for mass duplication of identical copies, the process of textual drift got stopped in its tracks. The idea that with many eyeballs all bugs are shallow really begins in the 15th and 16th century with mass printing.
Another development from printing that we are still dealing with is the invention of "Intellectual Property". In the days of hand copying this concept did not exist. Most of the works people cared about were from antiquity anyway, and copying them to preserve them was a sacred trust. But with the development of a mass market for books, more new works were being created, and financial compensation became an issue. By 1500 this was already underway, and what been a commons was subject to an "enclosure" movement. One of the ironies is that a pioneer printer who was part of this process, Louis Elsevier, gave his name to a modern publishing company that is now being attacked by scientists for locking up what they believe should be a common. (Note, the modern company is not the legal continuation of the house of Elsevier. But they took the name of their countryman in recognition of his fame in printing history).
The religious wars are intimately linked to the rise of printing. On the one hand, it is difficult to see the Protestant Reformation succeeding if printing had not been available, since previous "heretics" had been rather easily suppressed by the institutional power of the Catholic Church. But with the ability to spread their tracts all over Europe in mere weeks this revolution could not be stopped. But it is equally clear that the Reformation had much to do with the success of the Printing revolution. Protestant Princes sheltered and supported the printers who published many notable scientific works. Interestingly, they did so not because of any commitment to free speech or freedom of thought, but primarily to antagonize the Catholic Church. In fact, the well known Index Liborum Prohibitorum (i.e. Index of Prohibited Books) compiled by the Catholic Church became the favorite source for printers in Protestant countries who were looking for works to print. Indeed, by specifying exactly which lines on which pages it found objectionable, the Catholic Church provided an invaluable guide to the printers as to exactly which passages to highlight and mass duplicate! I find it interesting that at the present time the situation has nearly reversed, with the fundamentalist Protestants opposing science and the Catholic Church mostly accepting science. But the lesson I draw form this history is two-fold: First, as during the Reformation, you cannot stop ideas from spreading. With the Internet, instead of traveling in weeks, an idea can travel at the speed of light. And the more you try to prohibit something, the more attractive it becomes.
The final idea I want to highlight is the this revolution did not take place primarily in the large nations, but in the small principalities. It was the smaller areas that lead the way, and I think you can see why when you consider how revolutionary printing was. Large nations by their nature resist revolutions because they have nothing to gain from them and much to lose. The printing revolution succeeded in large part because no one was in a position to stop it. And that is significant when you look at the desperate attempts of nations (and even the U.N.) to take control of the Internet. Whether they can do it at this point is a question for another day, but I think it is clear that they should be resisted as much as possible.
January 13, 2016
Saggio imperdibile per chi vuole capire perché il Rinascimento ha preso piede e ancora ne parliamo, mentre le rinascite dei secoli precedenti sono finite nel cestino della carta straccia della Storia. E per chi ama i libri. È strano dirlo per un saggio storico, ma chi ama i libri non dovrebbe perdersi questo. C'è praticamente scritta la ragion d'essere dei libri (e dei lettori); non dal punto di vista sentimentale, che quello altri libri e non questo lo spiegano, ma dal punto di vista pratico.
La stampa a caratteri mobili viene considerata una delle nuove "scoperte" del secolo quindicesimo, assieme alle scoperte geografiche e scientifiche che da quell'epoca iniziano a modificare la realtà come l'uomo l'aveva sempre vista. Scoperte e invenzioni che sembrano legate a doppio filo al nuovo spirito che proprio allora si afferma, secondo una mentalità che spinge a cercare una risposta alle domande dell'uomo in ciò che il suo intelletto può conoscere, e non più all'esterno di esso.
Ma non accadeva certo allora per la prima volta. Già in passato si era assistito in parte alla rinascita delle arti e degli studi: tra l'VIII° e l'XI° secolo si ebbero diverse "rinascite", in Lombardia, nell'Impero Carolingio, in Germania e nell'Impero Bizantino, senza contare quello che viene definito "rinascimento del XII secolo"; e tutte portarono innovazioni nell'architettura, nelle arti e, soprattutto l'ultima, nella scienza e nella tecnologia. Ma tutte si esaurirono in non più di un secolo, in alcuni casi molto meno.
Poco dopo l'inizio di una nuova rinascenza, però, alcune cose cambiano: nel quindicesimo secolo si diffonde la stampa a caratteri mobili, e, come sostiene questo libro, forse fu qualcosa di più di una delle tante scoperte che da allora si susseguirono: forse fu una delle chiavi.
Nemmeno saremmo qui, probabilmente, senza il processo che partì allora, e che forse fu il vero inizio della storia moderna; di certo saremmo diversi. Un processo che fu inarrestabile e che creò un'onda d'urto che ancora non si è esaurita. Continua sotto forme differenti e molteplici, ma non esclude, e forse non è più in grado di escludere, la parola stampata.
Il libro della Eisenstein tratta le linee secondo cui si sviluppò la cultura tipografica e di interazioni ed effetti della stampa su altri sviluppi dell'epoca rinascimentale, pur tralasciando quelli più squisitamente politici per concentrarsi su altre aree del pensiero, come la religione e la scienza. E riesce a dimostrare come gli effetti dell'introduzione della stampa a caratteri mobili siano stati più pervasivi e rivoluzionari di quanto comunemente si pensi.
L'opera presenta difetti di esposizione: l'autrice stessa lamenta la mancanza di studi sistematici sull'argomento (almeno nell''83, quando il libro fu pubblicato), e ammette che la sua opera altro non è che un primo, incompleto tentativo di organizzare una materia così vasta.
Concetti ripetuti e talvolta repentini salti all'indietro, che possono infastidire e confondere il lettore, sono probabilmente dovuti al fatto che quella in mio possesso è, nelle parole stesse dell'autrice, una "versione abbreviata rivolta al lettore non specialista".
L'edizione che posseggo fu acquistata in allegato a Il Giornale: ho letto su un'altra recensione che ne sono state escluse le immagini che accompagnavano il testo. Non so però se questo valga solo per l'edizione Il Mulino.
Come ultima nota, dirò che è stato estremamente stimolante leggere dell'invenzione della stampa come di un "definito cambiamento nelle comunicazioni", semplicemente perché è esattamente ciò che sta succedendo oggi con la Rete. E, fatte le dovute distinzioni, alcuni parallelismi sono straordinari.
In assoluto uno dei miei saggi preferiti, e consigliato a chiunque ami i libri.
Tra i libri che voglio sicuramente rileggere non sono molti i saggi: questo vi rientra a pieno titolo.
Voto: 9,5/10
La stampa a caratteri mobili viene considerata una delle nuove "scoperte" del secolo quindicesimo, assieme alle scoperte geografiche e scientifiche che da quell'epoca iniziano a modificare la realtà come l'uomo l'aveva sempre vista. Scoperte e invenzioni che sembrano legate a doppio filo al nuovo spirito che proprio allora si afferma, secondo una mentalità che spinge a cercare una risposta alle domande dell'uomo in ciò che il suo intelletto può conoscere, e non più all'esterno di esso.
Ma non accadeva certo allora per la prima volta. Già in passato si era assistito in parte alla rinascita delle arti e degli studi: tra l'VIII° e l'XI° secolo si ebbero diverse "rinascite", in Lombardia, nell'Impero Carolingio, in Germania e nell'Impero Bizantino, senza contare quello che viene definito "rinascimento del XII secolo"; e tutte portarono innovazioni nell'architettura, nelle arti e, soprattutto l'ultima, nella scienza e nella tecnologia. Ma tutte si esaurirono in non più di un secolo, in alcuni casi molto meno.
Poco dopo l'inizio di una nuova rinascenza, però, alcune cose cambiano: nel quindicesimo secolo si diffonde la stampa a caratteri mobili, e, come sostiene questo libro, forse fu qualcosa di più di una delle tante scoperte che da allora si susseguirono: forse fu una delle chiavi.
Nemmeno saremmo qui, probabilmente, senza il processo che partì allora, e che forse fu il vero inizio della storia moderna; di certo saremmo diversi. Un processo che fu inarrestabile e che creò un'onda d'urto che ancora non si è esaurita. Continua sotto forme differenti e molteplici, ma non esclude, e forse non è più in grado di escludere, la parola stampata.
Il libro della Eisenstein tratta le linee secondo cui si sviluppò la cultura tipografica e di interazioni ed effetti della stampa su altri sviluppi dell'epoca rinascimentale, pur tralasciando quelli più squisitamente politici per concentrarsi su altre aree del pensiero, come la religione e la scienza. E riesce a dimostrare come gli effetti dell'introduzione della stampa a caratteri mobili siano stati più pervasivi e rivoluzionari di quanto comunemente si pensi.
L'opera presenta difetti di esposizione: l'autrice stessa lamenta la mancanza di studi sistematici sull'argomento (almeno nell''83, quando il libro fu pubblicato), e ammette che la sua opera altro non è che un primo, incompleto tentativo di organizzare una materia così vasta.
Concetti ripetuti e talvolta repentini salti all'indietro, che possono infastidire e confondere il lettore, sono probabilmente dovuti al fatto che quella in mio possesso è, nelle parole stesse dell'autrice, una "versione abbreviata rivolta al lettore non specialista".
L'edizione che posseggo fu acquistata in allegato a Il Giornale: ho letto su un'altra recensione che ne sono state escluse le immagini che accompagnavano il testo. Non so però se questo valga solo per l'edizione Il Mulino.
Come ultima nota, dirò che è stato estremamente stimolante leggere dell'invenzione della stampa come di un "definito cambiamento nelle comunicazioni", semplicemente perché è esattamente ciò che sta succedendo oggi con la Rete. E, fatte le dovute distinzioni, alcuni parallelismi sono straordinari.
In assoluto uno dei miei saggi preferiti, e consigliato a chiunque ami i libri.
Tra i libri che voglio sicuramente rileggere non sono molti i saggi: questo vi rientra a pieno titolo.
Voto: 9,5/10
March 26, 2008
Eisenstein's primary thrust is that the invention of the printing press was a major, causal factor in the Reformation, the (later) Renaissance, and what would become the Western scientific tradition. The emphasis on causality has, ahem, caused her to come under fire from numerous angles, primarily because it seems to deemphasize the social/political/economic/cultural context of the period. I agree with this point, although concede that the invention certainly altered the landscape. Beyond her main argument, the information itself is very interesting, despite the fact that the historical coverage stops mid 17th century, so there is no real coverage of, for instance, mass literacy, developed print capitalism, etc. For that, see her second book, or one of the million other books on the subject.
February 14, 2022
Review paper written for class:
In The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, Eisenstein claims that “as an agent of change, printing altered methods of data collection, storage and retrieval systems, and communications networks used by learned communities throughout Europe.” Overall, Eisenstein argues that while the case for the revolutionary impact of print may seem obvious, it has been taken for granted. Eisenstein goes on to summarize much of the work already done by scholars of various fields on the influence of printing technology before arguing in more depth for the following: that the arrival of print helped to bring about the classical revival that led to the Renaissance in Italy and beyond, that the advent of printing should be placed before the Protestant revolt, and that the stability of print (versus manuscript) assisted in the spread of and collaboration over information, leading in part to the Scientific Revolution. While many of Eisenstein’s suggestions for the value of printing are sweeping and her arguments repetitive and overly abundant, the legwork she has done to collect so many sources and research in one place and the innumerable suggestions for further research she makes throughout this book are of immeasurable value to the field of book history.
The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe begins in many ways not as Eisenstein’s entirely original proposal, but rather a collection of research on print history that suggests the revolutionary value of printing in early modern Europe. Adrian Johns’ accusation that Eisenstein’s work is simply a modern act of common placing is harsh, but in many ways true. This is not a negative critique, though, because this work of compiling existing material needed to be done to recognize both the many patterns already suggesting the influence of print in the study of book history and to collect in one place innumerable directions in which studies of print’s influence could continue.
In fact, so many compiled sources and new claims rush forth towards the reader in an almost constant torrent of dense information throughout The Printing Revolution that it can be hard to keep up. Perhaps cutting so much from the original two-volume edition of 1979 to create this abridged version leaves points that were originally more drawn out feeling far more hurried and condensed. In just one ten-page section of a chapter Eisenstein touches on enough topics to keep any avid scholar of book history busy for a decade. These include, but are not limited to, printing as a catalyst for the development of individual authorship, the demand of patents and invention credit, the concept of celebrity, the shift from the recovery of truth to the discovery of truth, and overall, for the rapid advancement of learning that no longer had to spend so much energy on preservation of information and could instead turn attention to its production. Nearly every section of every chapter presents this number of concepts, collected from various sources from existing book history scholars to those of the scientific revolution, the Renaissance, biography, memory, the Middle Ages, religion and the Reformation, and more.
While Eisenstein’s collection and suggestion of so many ideas are useful, if not occasionally overwhelming, she makes many of the same points (largely the revolutionary quality of print) so repeatedly and in so many varied ways that it is as if she does not think the reader will believe her. Being primarily a specialist of the French Revolution and not of book history makes this understandable as Eisenstein must see herself as an “outsider” of the field that she endeavors to revolutionize. Her research interests also may make her prone to recognizing “revolution,” or if not recognizing it then certainly wanting to, more than most. Eisenstein certainly does romanticize the arrival of printing technology in Europe, but that does not entirely discount her ideas or the work she has done to advance the field of book history. In fact, much can be said for the ability of an “outsider” of a particular field’s ability to look at material with fresh eyes and ideas.
Meanwhile, Eisenstein’s book as its own study based on the entirety of early modern Western Europe and of only the upper, learned classes is destined to create sweeping and generalizing conclusions, and these do abound in The Printing Revolution. The structure of the book is also quite unbalanced. It begins with a thorough introduction to the arrival and effects of printing including the suggestions that print was an agent of change, that print caused not merely an increase in book production, but an explosion, that the shift from manuscript to print was gradual and that the two methods of book production affected each other for some time, that the technical possibilities of type may have led to a change in how knowledge and even human minds were organized, and more.
These general propositions and overview of what Eisenstein identifies as “a preliminary sketch…to suggest [printing’s] possible bearing on many different forms of historical change” are followed by three more sections in which she argues in detail for print’s role in the revolutions of the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution. These three arguments are strong if only through the sheer quantity of examples and sources provided by Eisenstein. However, it is clear that the author felt most confident, or at least had the most evidence, for her claims about print’s relationship with the Scientific Revolution as this section is much longer than the others, though followed closely by the section regarding the Reformation. Eisenstein’s thoughts about print’s effect on classical revival and the Renaissance, meanwhile, feel like a distant memory by the time a reader works their way through to the end of the book.
In many ways, Eisenstein does what she sets out to do in advancing the field of book history by compiling so many ideas and sources on both the immediate and long-term effects of printing. The fact that nearly 400 pages (initially 800 pages in the first, two-volume edition published in 1979) can be compiled on the significance of printing does in fact suggest that the arrival of printing in early modern Europe was significant. Thus, whether one agrees with Eisenstein’s own arguments or not, the appearance of her book in the field of book history and the collected research and suggestions for further research within it cannot be ignored.
In The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, Eisenstein claims that “as an agent of change, printing altered methods of data collection, storage and retrieval systems, and communications networks used by learned communities throughout Europe.” Overall, Eisenstein argues that while the case for the revolutionary impact of print may seem obvious, it has been taken for granted. Eisenstein goes on to summarize much of the work already done by scholars of various fields on the influence of printing technology before arguing in more depth for the following: that the arrival of print helped to bring about the classical revival that led to the Renaissance in Italy and beyond, that the advent of printing should be placed before the Protestant revolt, and that the stability of print (versus manuscript) assisted in the spread of and collaboration over information, leading in part to the Scientific Revolution. While many of Eisenstein’s suggestions for the value of printing are sweeping and her arguments repetitive and overly abundant, the legwork she has done to collect so many sources and research in one place and the innumerable suggestions for further research she makes throughout this book are of immeasurable value to the field of book history.
The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe begins in many ways not as Eisenstein’s entirely original proposal, but rather a collection of research on print history that suggests the revolutionary value of printing in early modern Europe. Adrian Johns’ accusation that Eisenstein’s work is simply a modern act of common placing is harsh, but in many ways true. This is not a negative critique, though, because this work of compiling existing material needed to be done to recognize both the many patterns already suggesting the influence of print in the study of book history and to collect in one place innumerable directions in which studies of print’s influence could continue.
In fact, so many compiled sources and new claims rush forth towards the reader in an almost constant torrent of dense information throughout The Printing Revolution that it can be hard to keep up. Perhaps cutting so much from the original two-volume edition of 1979 to create this abridged version leaves points that were originally more drawn out feeling far more hurried and condensed. In just one ten-page section of a chapter Eisenstein touches on enough topics to keep any avid scholar of book history busy for a decade. These include, but are not limited to, printing as a catalyst for the development of individual authorship, the demand of patents and invention credit, the concept of celebrity, the shift from the recovery of truth to the discovery of truth, and overall, for the rapid advancement of learning that no longer had to spend so much energy on preservation of information and could instead turn attention to its production. Nearly every section of every chapter presents this number of concepts, collected from various sources from existing book history scholars to those of the scientific revolution, the Renaissance, biography, memory, the Middle Ages, religion and the Reformation, and more.
While Eisenstein’s collection and suggestion of so many ideas are useful, if not occasionally overwhelming, she makes many of the same points (largely the revolutionary quality of print) so repeatedly and in so many varied ways that it is as if she does not think the reader will believe her. Being primarily a specialist of the French Revolution and not of book history makes this understandable as Eisenstein must see herself as an “outsider” of the field that she endeavors to revolutionize. Her research interests also may make her prone to recognizing “revolution,” or if not recognizing it then certainly wanting to, more than most. Eisenstein certainly does romanticize the arrival of printing technology in Europe, but that does not entirely discount her ideas or the work she has done to advance the field of book history. In fact, much can be said for the ability of an “outsider” of a particular field’s ability to look at material with fresh eyes and ideas.
Meanwhile, Eisenstein’s book as its own study based on the entirety of early modern Western Europe and of only the upper, learned classes is destined to create sweeping and generalizing conclusions, and these do abound in The Printing Revolution. The structure of the book is also quite unbalanced. It begins with a thorough introduction to the arrival and effects of printing including the suggestions that print was an agent of change, that print caused not merely an increase in book production, but an explosion, that the shift from manuscript to print was gradual and that the two methods of book production affected each other for some time, that the technical possibilities of type may have led to a change in how knowledge and even human minds were organized, and more.
These general propositions and overview of what Eisenstein identifies as “a preliminary sketch…to suggest [printing’s] possible bearing on many different forms of historical change” are followed by three more sections in which she argues in detail for print’s role in the revolutions of the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution. These three arguments are strong if only through the sheer quantity of examples and sources provided by Eisenstein. However, it is clear that the author felt most confident, or at least had the most evidence, for her claims about print’s relationship with the Scientific Revolution as this section is much longer than the others, though followed closely by the section regarding the Reformation. Eisenstein’s thoughts about print’s effect on classical revival and the Renaissance, meanwhile, feel like a distant memory by the time a reader works their way through to the end of the book.
In many ways, Eisenstein does what she sets out to do in advancing the field of book history by compiling so many ideas and sources on both the immediate and long-term effects of printing. The fact that nearly 400 pages (initially 800 pages in the first, two-volume edition published in 1979) can be compiled on the significance of printing does in fact suggest that the arrival of printing in early modern Europe was significant. Thus, whether one agrees with Eisenstein’s own arguments or not, the appearance of her book in the field of book history and the collected research and suggestions for further research within it cannot be ignored.
February 12, 2014
This book is a fascinating look at the changes that took place in Europe because of the invention of the printing press. Eisenstein explores how printing -- assuring accurate copies that could be spread to anyone who desired one -- changed the entire society from medieval into the earliest version of our own modern age.
Instead of vanishingly scarce and locked away in monasteries and libraries (where a great fire, like at the library in Alexandria, could wipe out a measurable portion of world knowledge forever -- unthinkable to us today!), books became ubiquitous, something that any interested layman could have access to. Instead of spending their careers looking for the "Ur-text" versions of documents (because in scribal culture, the earliest copy is guaranteed to be the most accurate), scholars were able to read widely and start comparing authors, and in doing so started the practice of science as we know it, taking their own measurements instead of relying on the old observations put down by Aristotle.
Religion, too, was changed forever, much to the Catholic Church's chagrin at the time (they had been the gatekeepers both spiritually and politically for the majority of the Medieval period), with Protestantism and a burgeoning humanist movement beginning to take shape, driven by the new access that all people now had to books.
There are many more facets to the complete cultural revolution engendered by the switch from a scribal culture to a printed culture, which Eisenstein covers. What I find fascinating is the depiction of the chaos that ensued during the time of the revolution. The powers-that-be were convinced that all these new thoughts and trends were flash-in-the-pan, and when faced with the fact that they weren't going away, the gatekeepers cracked down and tried to enforce the status quo ante (not that it got them anywhere in the long run). The common layperson (OK, probably not "common", but the tradesmen and the rapidly growing middle classes, as well as the educated classes -- not necessarily the upper classes) was able to take in large numbers of conflicting truth claims from different sources, and had to develop the judgement to decide what to believe. Who had the strongest claim to the truth? All of this was new. Was it the work of the devil that people could now read the Bible in their own language, at their own home, and come to their own conclusions? On the other hand, was it the work of the devil that authors were able to print and sell erotic literature to anyone who was interested? Was it a good thing, or a harmfully destructive thing, that anyone with the money for a print run could convincingly criticize the political and religious powers in the world? No one knew.
The late medieval world had to spend a century or so resorting itself to deal with all of these winds of change, caused access to so much more information than even the wisest scholars of the time previously could have imagined.
It's a parallel to our own time of revolution with the Internet, where the old gatekeepers (publishers, politicians, music and film companies, academics, the media, etc.) are rapidly losing their exclusive access to information, and the common layperson now can evaluate their competing "truth claims" and decide who has the better argument. The chaos we see now, where one industry after another is brought down by the new forms of information dissemination, is a parallel to the chaos that happened as the scribal culture was (painfully, incrementally) pulled apart to become a printed culture.
Anyhow, this is all the more interesting to consider in light of the fact that this book was originally written in the 70s and 80s, when the throes of conversion to the Age of the Internet were not on anyone's radar. For me, this was a reminder that "there is nothing new under the sun" and that there is a new normal that will come into being after all of this transition -- and that new normal will probably be better in ways that we can't even dream of right now, because we're not even thinking the right way yet.
Instead of vanishingly scarce and locked away in monasteries and libraries (where a great fire, like at the library in Alexandria, could wipe out a measurable portion of world knowledge forever -- unthinkable to us today!), books became ubiquitous, something that any interested layman could have access to. Instead of spending their careers looking for the "Ur-text" versions of documents (because in scribal culture, the earliest copy is guaranteed to be the most accurate), scholars were able to read widely and start comparing authors, and in doing so started the practice of science as we know it, taking their own measurements instead of relying on the old observations put down by Aristotle.
Religion, too, was changed forever, much to the Catholic Church's chagrin at the time (they had been the gatekeepers both spiritually and politically for the majority of the Medieval period), with Protestantism and a burgeoning humanist movement beginning to take shape, driven by the new access that all people now had to books.
There are many more facets to the complete cultural revolution engendered by the switch from a scribal culture to a printed culture, which Eisenstein covers. What I find fascinating is the depiction of the chaos that ensued during the time of the revolution. The powers-that-be were convinced that all these new thoughts and trends were flash-in-the-pan, and when faced with the fact that they weren't going away, the gatekeepers cracked down and tried to enforce the status quo ante (not that it got them anywhere in the long run). The common layperson (OK, probably not "common", but the tradesmen and the rapidly growing middle classes, as well as the educated classes -- not necessarily the upper classes) was able to take in large numbers of conflicting truth claims from different sources, and had to develop the judgement to decide what to believe. Who had the strongest claim to the truth? All of this was new. Was it the work of the devil that people could now read the Bible in their own language, at their own home, and come to their own conclusions? On the other hand, was it the work of the devil that authors were able to print and sell erotic literature to anyone who was interested? Was it a good thing, or a harmfully destructive thing, that anyone with the money for a print run could convincingly criticize the political and religious powers in the world? No one knew.
The late medieval world had to spend a century or so resorting itself to deal with all of these winds of change, caused access to so much more information than even the wisest scholars of the time previously could have imagined.
It's a parallel to our own time of revolution with the Internet, where the old gatekeepers (publishers, politicians, music and film companies, academics, the media, etc.) are rapidly losing their exclusive access to information, and the common layperson now can evaluate their competing "truth claims" and decide who has the better argument. The chaos we see now, where one industry after another is brought down by the new forms of information dissemination, is a parallel to the chaos that happened as the scribal culture was (painfully, incrementally) pulled apart to become a printed culture.
Anyhow, this is all the more interesting to consider in light of the fact that this book was originally written in the 70s and 80s, when the throes of conversion to the Age of the Internet were not on anyone's radar. For me, this was a reminder that "there is nothing new under the sun" and that there is a new normal that will come into being after all of this transition -- and that new normal will probably be better in ways that we can't even dream of right now, because we're not even thinking the right way yet.
July 8, 2022
Bardzo ciekawe wyjaśnienie, m.in. dlaczego w jednych krajach czyta się więcej, a w innych mniej. Miejscami napotkamy dłużyzny, ale warto je przetrwać. To pozycja wg mnie dużo bardziej otwierająca głowę na zmiany, jakie światu przyniósł druk, niż "Galaktyka Gutenberga" Luhana.
October 13, 2009
I derived particular enjoyment from the afterword, in which Eisenstein went after everyone who reviewed her book and told her it was wrong. Ah, academic bitchslaps. v. enjoyable.
Anyway: argues that printing led to the formation of new ideas not because it encouragement the printing and therefore dissemination of those new ideas (it didn't, necessarily) but because it encouraged the wide diffusion of many older, competing ideas that fuelled curiosity and the desire to make sense of it all. Responds to an earlier trend that characterized the development of printing as critical to the rise of pre-modern society, but did not explain its contribution or its wider impact on Western European culture. Criticized for its emphasis on technology as an agent of change and de-emphasis on the people who operated it; but I disagree with this criticism, as she clearly makes the case that it was not the technology that acted as an agent of change, but the way in which it was used (that is, not always logically and not always the way that, say, Gutenberg intended) that drove the cultural shift.
Anyway: argues that printing led to the formation of new ideas not because it encouragement the printing and therefore dissemination of those new ideas (it didn't, necessarily) but because it encouraged the wide diffusion of many older, competing ideas that fuelled curiosity and the desire to make sense of it all. Responds to an earlier trend that characterized the development of printing as critical to the rise of pre-modern society, but did not explain its contribution or its wider impact on Western European culture. Criticized for its emphasis on technology as an agent of change and de-emphasis on the people who operated it; but I disagree with this criticism, as she clearly makes the case that it was not the technology that acted as an agent of change, but the way in which it was used (that is, not always logically and not always the way that, say, Gutenberg intended) that drove the cultural shift.
January 31, 2023
È un tema notevole e questo è sicuramente un testo di importanza fondamentale per la storia della cultura, ma L’ho trovato scritto in modo dispersivo. Chiedo venia.
September 21, 2020
It has profound ideas: she states printing and reading culture promoted temporary isolation. That in turn made us start to see individual as discrete unit instead of groups. I guess that was the foreshadow of the European individualism in the following 5 centuries. Jeez. What a profound invention.
Also, she mentions Protestants are the ones who's made the first use of mass propaganda through printing press. Coupled with German nationalism (of 16h century equivalent), the invention of literary device gave them the legitimacy against Rome. That is a piece of history you don't want to miss.
Even though the book is a bit challenging to follow, she brings up some eye-opening histories.
Also, she mentions Protestants are the ones who's made the first use of mass propaganda through printing press. Coupled with German nationalism (of 16h century equivalent), the invention of literary device gave them the legitimacy against Rome. That is a piece of history you don't want to miss.
Even though the book is a bit challenging to follow, she brings up some eye-opening histories.
May 6, 2017
Das Buch ist nicht für interessierte Laien als Einstiegswerk in die Geschichte des Buchdruckes geeignet. Man gewinnt die meisten Erkenntnisse erst, wenn man bereits Vorwissen hat. Idealerweise kennt man auch einige der am häufigsten zitierten Arbeiten.
Aber dann dringt das Buch in eine Tiefe der wissenschaftlichen Arbeit vor, die ihresgleichen sucht. Es ist dann definitiv ein Gewinn. Man gewinnt viele Sichtweisen und Informationen, die man so noch nicht hatte.
Freilich sind die für jeden verschieden; Meine drei Hilights, die Ich mitnehme sind:
3. Der Profitanreiz beim Verkauf von Büchern hat nicht nur Einfluss auf die Verbreitung des Buchdrucks gehabt, sondern auch für Korrektheit gesorgt. Falsche Bücher verkaufen sich schlecht. Somit wurden Leser angehalten, Fehler zu melden. Informationen wurden vorab geprüft, bevor sie in Büchern gedruckt wurden.
2. Für Autoren lag der Profit auch in der Bekanntmachung ihrer Namen. Die Würdigung von Leistungen spielt noch heute beim Zitieren und sogar im Web 2.0 bei Retweets (Posts) oder bei Originalität eine gewichtige Rolle.
1. Bücher sind nur Bücher. Es sind Container für Informationen, die billig herzustellen sind. Der Wert eines Buches hat sich nach der Lektüre für Mich stark gesenkt. Ich konnte vorher kein Buch wegwerfen, mittlerweile sind Meine Hemmungen gesunken. Was nicht bedeutet, dass Ich nun den Inhalt nicht mehr schätzen würde - Nein! Die Buchform hingegen ist im Vergleich zu Manuskripten oder anderen handschriftlichen Aufzeichnungen, die in stunden-, tage-, wochenlanger Arbeit erstellt wurden, nicht soooo wertvoll.
Aber dann dringt das Buch in eine Tiefe der wissenschaftlichen Arbeit vor, die ihresgleichen sucht. Es ist dann definitiv ein Gewinn. Man gewinnt viele Sichtweisen und Informationen, die man so noch nicht hatte.
Freilich sind die für jeden verschieden; Meine drei Hilights, die Ich mitnehme sind:
3. Der Profitanreiz beim Verkauf von Büchern hat nicht nur Einfluss auf die Verbreitung des Buchdrucks gehabt, sondern auch für Korrektheit gesorgt. Falsche Bücher verkaufen sich schlecht. Somit wurden Leser angehalten, Fehler zu melden. Informationen wurden vorab geprüft, bevor sie in Büchern gedruckt wurden.
2. Für Autoren lag der Profit auch in der Bekanntmachung ihrer Namen. Die Würdigung von Leistungen spielt noch heute beim Zitieren und sogar im Web 2.0 bei Retweets (Posts) oder bei Originalität eine gewichtige Rolle.
1. Bücher sind nur Bücher. Es sind Container für Informationen, die billig herzustellen sind. Der Wert eines Buches hat sich nach der Lektüre für Mich stark gesenkt. Ich konnte vorher kein Buch wegwerfen, mittlerweile sind Meine Hemmungen gesunken. Was nicht bedeutet, dass Ich nun den Inhalt nicht mehr schätzen würde - Nein! Die Buchform hingegen ist im Vergleich zu Manuskripten oder anderen handschriftlichen Aufzeichnungen, die in stunden-, tage-, wochenlanger Arbeit erstellt wurden, nicht soooo wertvoll.
July 13, 2017
The Printing Revolution in Modern Europe, Elizabeth Eisenstein (3.5)
While I found quite a few interesting points made in this book, it was quite difficult to read. As one should expect from an expert on books and printing, every word and sentence was pithy and meaningful, thus I lost a lot of comprehension if I started to skim. This is an abridged version of Ms. Eisenstein’s more detailed research on how printing affected life in the 15th century. After summarizing the initial changes, and introducing the establishment of printing shops, she discusses printing effects on three major cultural movements: the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the rise of modern science. I found the most interesting points to be the simple ones: the effect on map making; the impact of the uniformity of punctuation, numbering of pages, etc.; the importance of annotation and cross-referencing on future authors; the increase in silent reading; and the enabling of a power to expand to an audience wider than the clergy. She emphasizes the importance of printing in that it ‘arrested, then reversed the process of loss, corruption and erosion’ in the previous forms of documentation. The first edition of this book was printed in 1984. It would be interesting to see a companion book comparing the printing revolution to some of our newer communication revolutions. The Afterword included in the second edition is quite defensive. You can tell that Ms. Eisenstein has spent many years defending her thesis from those wanted to make additional marks in printing history.
While I found quite a few interesting points made in this book, it was quite difficult to read. As one should expect from an expert on books and printing, every word and sentence was pithy and meaningful, thus I lost a lot of comprehension if I started to skim. This is an abridged version of Ms. Eisenstein’s more detailed research on how printing affected life in the 15th century. After summarizing the initial changes, and introducing the establishment of printing shops, she discusses printing effects on three major cultural movements: the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the rise of modern science. I found the most interesting points to be the simple ones: the effect on map making; the impact of the uniformity of punctuation, numbering of pages, etc.; the importance of annotation and cross-referencing on future authors; the increase in silent reading; and the enabling of a power to expand to an audience wider than the clergy. She emphasizes the importance of printing in that it ‘arrested, then reversed the process of loss, corruption and erosion’ in the previous forms of documentation. The first edition of this book was printed in 1984. It would be interesting to see a companion book comparing the printing revolution to some of our newer communication revolutions. The Afterword included in the second edition is quite defensive. You can tell that Ms. Eisenstein has spent many years defending her thesis from those wanted to make additional marks in printing history.
March 2, 2012
I enjoy reading about the history of printing, but this book is dense and dry and is more focused on being scholarly than on being readable. It does contain dozens of illustrations of early printing, which helped lighten the weight of the prose. Another drawback is that the author used the afterword to carry on with an academic spat, which some people find lively but I thought it was obnoxious and silly.
A better book about the history of printing is "Out of the Flames" by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone.
A better book about the history of printing is "Out of the Flames" by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone.
March 10, 2013
While Eisenstein's argument has some holes including a lack of primary sources, an absolutist stance, and a denial of the continued importance of manuscripts alongside print, my biggest problem with this book is her writing style. She is a rambling author who intersperses every chapter with block quotes from other scholars without giving the quotes any context. She is so concerned with comparing her argument to other scholars' in the field that she looses the attention of the reader.
June 5, 2016
More interesting than I expected, this book emphasizes the role that printing had on the success of the Protestant and Anglican separations from papal authority, and also the enabling role it took in the scientific revolution.
June 30, 2015
A little dense at times but by far the best text on printing history I've read to date.
July 20, 2018
Per chi, come lo scrivente, è tutto sommato digiuno di Storia del libro, il volume risulta molto interessante ed al contempo pienamente comprensibile. Se è indubitabilmente lodevole l'idea dell'autrice di fornire al lettore un'opera divulgativa senza per questo perdere il taglio specialistico, nè abbandonare il linguaggio tecnico, certo lo è molto meno l'aver qua e là trascritto pari pari interi stralci della sua precedente produzione senza farne menzione alcuna. L'unica altra critica che mi sento in dovere di muovere, seppur a malincuore, riguarda la scelta dei testi in bibliografia ed in nota, che quasi sempre sono citazioni "di seconda mano", sopratutto per quanto concerne testi anteriori al Novecento. Ad esempio: nel riportare lo stralcio di un discorso tenuto dal Malesherbes nel 1775 (p. 106), l'autrice indica in nota non quale fosse il suddetto discorso, ma un laconico "citato da Arthur MacCandless Wilson", cui seguono gli estremi bibliografici di un'opera non già sul Malesherbes, come quantomeno ci si aspetterebbe, ma su Diderot.
La scelta di citare volumi di facile reperibilità anche se non pienamente attinenti all'argomento, scelta comprensibile, sopratutto se si tiene conto del target dell'opera, non è di per sè malvagia, mafinisce alla lunga per comprometterne la tecnicità ed il rigore scientifico.
Non ho avuto fino ad ora occasione di leggere il testo nell'originale inglese, ma chi lo ha fatto mi ha garantito che la lingua scelta dalla Eisenstein si fa notare per chiarezza ed incisività.
La traduzione italiana, che pure nel complesso mi sembra buona, accanto a termini desueti (le miriadi di "nonostante che", certo grammaticalmente più corretto del solo "nonostante", ma indubitabilmente più pesante- tanto più se ripetuto all'inizio di ogni sacrosanto periodo) vede tuttavia a volte qualche sonoro scivolone nel colloquiale ( "dopo che diventò", p.91).
La scelta di citare volumi di facile reperibilità anche se non pienamente attinenti all'argomento, scelta comprensibile, sopratutto se si tiene conto del target dell'opera, non è di per sè malvagia, mafinisce alla lunga per comprometterne la tecnicità ed il rigore scientifico.
Non ho avuto fino ad ora occasione di leggere il testo nell'originale inglese, ma chi lo ha fatto mi ha garantito che la lingua scelta dalla Eisenstein si fa notare per chiarezza ed incisività.
La traduzione italiana, che pure nel complesso mi sembra buona, accanto a termini desueti (le miriadi di "nonostante che", certo grammaticalmente più corretto del solo "nonostante", ma indubitabilmente più pesante- tanto più se ripetuto all'inizio di ogni sacrosanto periodo) vede tuttavia a volte qualche sonoro scivolone nel colloquiale ( "dopo che diventò", p.91).
April 18, 2023
Fascinating and cautionary read. Unfortunately this was the book available in my tiny college library rather than the scholarly and referenced version. The drive toward popularization apparently extended to an incredible amount of suppression of references--e.g., multiple block quotes from Galileo, no mention of which of his texts they represent. I would almost certainly have been better served reading pieces of The Printing Press As an Agent of Change rather than all of this.
One passage that I have to mention is the discussion of the effect of the trials and condemnations of Galileo and censoring of related astronomical texts on Italian and Austrian publishers and scientists. In a sober way she rebuts many of the Catholic sources that I have read that have downplayed this as a parting of the ways between Catholic and Protestant countries, to the detriment of scientists in the former for a long time. I still have not made any special study of the Galileo affairs so of course all I can do is think about it.
One passage that I have to mention is the discussion of the effect of the trials and condemnations of Galileo and censoring of related astronomical texts on Italian and Austrian publishers and scientists. In a sober way she rebuts many of the Catholic sources that I have read that have downplayed this as a parting of the ways between Catholic and Protestant countries, to the detriment of scientists in the former for a long time. I still have not made any special study of the Galileo affairs so of course all I can do is think about it.
Read
September 12, 2022somehow this book made me cry tears of boredom and also fall asleep. I’m sure it’s a REALLY good analysis of printing and the impacts of the printing press on culture but unfortunately it was too hard for me to understand and I now am terrified for the rest of the books required for this class. I got nothing out of this book except for the fact that I know now why people think history is boring.
October 18, 2025
This is an 1983 abridgement of the two volume book, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, that Eisenstein published in 1979. It's an amazing book. The way I teach this is that two things happened that upended the way we gather information: the printing press and the internet. That's it. This book explains both how and why this is for printing. I don't know if the book on the internet has been written yet, but I hope it comes out before I die, and I'm 76.
March 29, 2019
I gave up reading one-third of way into the book. The subject is important and fascinating but the author’s style turns the fascinating history to a dull, rambling story.
Read
July 29, 2019Read select chapters for a class on early printing so while I can't rate the entire book, I will say it was very informative and had a lot of great information.
February 4, 2020
Interesting analysis of the birth of printing 1540-1640
January 13, 2023
Scholarly, but rewarding.
Want to read
January 5, 2024Bookmark...
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
July 1, 2024
Pretty academic and dense, but given the very limited available books on the topic, it was worth the read.
Especially as we are in the middle of an AI revolution.
Especially as we are in the middle of an AI revolution.
September 10, 2024
An excellent overview of the need to study the effects of printing on history, verbage was rather dense though.
October 12, 2024
This was a bit of a slog to get through honestly.
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