Important Consequences of the Printing Revolution

One very important consequence of the printing revolution is, certainly, the wide spread of information.As mentioned in previous posts, printed texts were much cheaper and abundant than hand copied ones. This movement allowed access to a larger reading public.

Books were no longer an unaccessible good. There was a reduce of the cost of producing books which allowed a increase in both dissemination of texts and "literati" members of society. With a large amount of published material, there were much more specific cultural information available and, therefore, more cultural interchange.

For Ms. Eisenstein, the most important consequence of the printing press was its preservative power, what she calls “typographical fixity.” What does she mean by that? Before the introduction of printing to Europe, lots of classical texts had been lost forever. The printing press, by making abundant copies, reduced the chances of losing texts and books. This endurance allowed great advance in all sorts of intellectual fields.

The Printing Revolution and some Intellectual Movements

In relation to the Scientific Revolution, the increased availability provided by cheaper, more abundant books, effectively increased the scientist’s lifetime by reducing or even eliminating the need to travel across Europe to find rare copies of traditional reference sources. In addition to that, science progressed by new data and theories overcoming the effects of ancient texts.

In relation to the Reformation, the rapid distribution of Martin Luther’s 95 theses across Europe was only possible through the printing press. Both Catholic and Protestants made extensive use from the beginning of mass-produced pamphlets for propaganda purposes. The use of propaganda as a tool for persuasion can be noticed all through history. 

During the II World War, Joseph Goebbels,  a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, said that "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it". The power of propaganda back then and nowadays can't be denied.

In relation to the Renaissance, the printing press transformed its development already in progress by making available copies of ancient sources. Each advancement could be fixed through abundant copies that could be distributed and used as a base for further growth. In other words, the printing press permitted a more efficient classical revival through its power of “typographical fixity”.

Medieval Control Over Information

The printing press was an important step towards the democratization of knowledge. Within fifty or sixty years of the invention of the printing press, the entire classical canon had been reprinted and widely promulgated throughout Europe (Eisenstein, 1969; 52). Now that more people had access to knowledge both new and old, more people could discuss these works. Furthermore, now that book production was a more commercial enterprise, the first copyright laws were passed to protect what we now would call intellectual property rights.

Books' changes through time

This is how the Medieval Bible looked like:




This is how it looked after the printing revolution:



And that is one of the many ways the bible and various other books can be read nowadays: