It would seem pretty obvious to me that the development of the printing press was important, but actually seeing examples of how it was important laid out before you is fascinating. Standardization to some extent I had realized and understood, though I particularly enjoyed the description of the misprinted bible excluding 'not' from one of the commandments. Standardization of scientific (or what was deemed scientific then) materials and the distribution of these printed documents to scholastic readers and others who had done similar research seems like it would have had a significant aspect on the scientific community.
Two aspects of the book struck a chord with me. First, the level of uncertainty on specifics of the era. While the results of the development are seen in every bookstore and library, the exact transition from scribes to printers is impossible to recall for a variety of reasons. Estimates on the number of texts printed can be made, but it can be difficult to gauge exactly how many and when documents were printed. Traditions, myths, maps, and documents of every type that were put into print could be compared, distributed, and redone with improved data or lost due to inconsistencies or other problems with the material. Perhaps tangentially related to the incomplete compilation of printed material from this period is the papal bull that effectively promoted the inquisition as well as the Reconquista that took place during this time, effectively erasing certain documents.
Which brings up the second point, that the history of printing is so utterly intertwined with so many aspects of life in that time period that it becomes difficult to pick apart and analyze sections of it without dissecting the topic in entirety. It wasn't just technology; it was a tool that gave researchers more time to pursue activities other than 'slavishly' copying their notes that they could not trust to scribes, it was a dramatic shift in the economic model for literature, and it would certainly influence a culture that until that point was semi-oral and semi-literate, something we cannot reproduce and analyze. It can be assumed that it took a considerable amount of time to implement this new technology just throughout Europe, much less the rest of the world, yet now it sometimes feels as though it happens overnight.
With the introduction of new media similar problems are presented, especially the overarching effects of this media on our lives. There are a few significant differences, however, namely the scale of history for recently developed media. In my lifetime alone, I have seen the development of the internet, cell phones, AOL, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and a variety of other tools or mediums. These seem easier to define their history and development, but we have a new issue now that didn't apply to the development of the printing press; it didn't come out at almost the same time as texting, email, Twitter, and have so much overlap with each of these mediums, whether it had this overlap initially or was eventually introduced to it. We don't just have a new medium that is affecting our society, we have multiple new mediums that are influencing each other and our society, such as the variety of mobile devices that can use Twitter.
The process feels almost like a sort of rapid reiteration, where as soon as a new medium is thrown into the mix other mediums are stripping it down to the essentials, keeping the good parts while trying to retain it's original purpose and redefining what exactly it can do. Take the evolution of Facebook; once upon a time updating your status involved going to your profile and typing in a box after "So-and-so is:", and recently it was updated to include name links directly taken from Twitter. With each new medium, we are getting better at dissecting it and stealing the good bits, which theoretically presents the possibility of a constantly, instantly evolving medium. Whats more, it might even work.
I'm glad you linked to the Wiki entry on the Malleus Maleficarum. For some reason seeing that tital page in print format really made the age feel chillingly real to me. The juxtposinton of such primitive horrors cloked in modernity.... Printing inevitably enabled terrible ideas to seem more legitamate, even scientific.
ReplyDeleteYou wrote, “the history of printing is so utterly intertwined with so many aspects of life in that time period that it becomes difficult to pick apart and analyze sections of it without dissecting the topic in entirety.” It is interesting that the same statement might be made in 2009 about the internet. In some ways the internet has made life easier (such as finding directions or ordering tickets); in other ways, more complicated (such as having to remember many user names and passwords). Some day, sooner rather than later, authors will write about the internet’s history and complexity the way that Eisenstein so cautiously wrote about the printing press.
ReplyDeleteWhile we do have a plethora of new forms of media, and it's easier to identify their histories and evolutions, we also have the ability to do that more skillfully and with greater acuity due to these technologies, as well as other that have arisen over the years, one of them being the printing press. I think using the "good bits" of existing media and for newer media is one of the few smart things we can do, and hopefully a way to learn from our mistakes. However, my fear is that in some respects, we throw the baby out with the bathwater, and forget the sweet, nostalgic ways in which we used to do things.
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