Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Part One Introduction to an Elusive Transformation
- 1 The unacknowledged revolution
- 2 Defining the initial shift; some features of print culture
- Part Two Classical and Christian Traditions Reoriented; Renaissance and Reformation Reappraised
- Part Three The Book of Nature Transformed
- Conclusion: Scripture and nature transformed
- Bibliographical index
- General index
2 - Defining the initial shift; some features of print culture
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2013
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Part One Introduction to an Elusive Transformation
- 1 The unacknowledged revolution
- 2 Defining the initial shift; some features of print culture
- Part Two Classical and Christian Traditions Reoriented; Renaissance and Reformation Reappraised
- Part Three The Book of Nature Transformed
- Conclusion: Scripture and nature transformed
- Bibliographical index
- General index
Summary
We should note the force, effect, and consequences of inventions which are nowhere more conspicuous than in those three which were unknown to the ancients, namely, printing, gunpowder, and the compass. For these three have changed the appearance and state of the whole world…
Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, Aphorism 129To dwell on the reasons why Bacon's advice ought to be followed by others is probably less helpful than trying to follow it oneself. This task clearly outstrips the competence of any single individual. It calls for the pooling of many talents and the writing of many books. Collaboration is difficult to obtain as long as the relevance of the topic to different fields of study remains obscure. Before aid can be enlisted, it seems necessary to develop some tentative hypotheses relating the shift from script to print to significant historical developments.
This task, in turn, seems to call for a somewhat unconventional point of departure and for a reformulation of Bacon's advice Instead of trying to deal with ‘the force, effect, and consequences’ of a single post-classical invention that is coupled with others, I will be concerned with a major transformation that constituted a large cluster of changes in itself. Indecision about what is meant by the advent of printing has, I think, helped to muffle concern about its possible consequences and made them more difficult to track down.
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- Information
- The Printing Press as an Agent of Change , pp. 43 - 160Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1980
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