Social Sciences: Class 10 (Part 3) — Chapter 5: Print Culture and the Modern World

1. The First Printed Books

The earliest print technology was developed in China, Japan, and Korea as a system of hand printing.

Woodblock Printing: From AD 594 onwards, books in China were printed by rubbing paper against the inked surface of woodblocks.
Accordion Book: The traditional Chinese book folded and stitched at the side because both sides of the thin, porous sheet could not be printed.
Calligraphy: The art of beautiful and stylised writing, duplicated by superbly skilled craftsmen.
Imperial State as Producer: The huge bureaucratic system in China recruited personnel through civil service examinations, sponsoring the printing of textbooks in vast numbers.
Urban Culture & Diversification: By the seventeenth century, print was used by merchants, scholars, and for leisure reading (fiction, poetry, drama). Rich women, wives of scholar-officials, and courtesans also published their works.
Shift to Mechanical Printing: In the late nineteenth century, Western printing techniques and mechanical presses were imported, with Shanghai becoming the hub of the new print culture.

1.1 Print in Japan

Buddhist missionaries from China introduced hand-printing technology into Japan around AD 768-770.

The oldest Japanese book is the Buddhist Diamond Sutra (AD 868), containing six sheets of text and woodcut illustrations.
In medieval Japan, poets and prose writers were regularly published, and books were cheap and abundant.
Ukiyo: An art form meaning 'pictures of the floating world', depicting ordinary human experiences, especially urban ones (e.g., works by Kitagawa Utamaro).
Libraries and bookstores were packed with hand-printed material on diverse topics like women, musical instruments, tea ceremonies, and cooking.

2. Print Comes to Europe

For centuries, silk and spices from China flowed into Europe through the silk route. In the eleventh century, Chinese paper reached Europe via the same route, enabling manuscript production by scribes.

In 1295, Marco Polo returned to Italy from China and brought the knowledge of woodblock printing with him.
Vellum: A highly expensive parchment made from the skin of animals, used for luxury editions meant for aristocrats and rich monastic libraries.
Demand and Scribes: As demand rose, booksellers exported books and employed scribes. However, handwritten manuscripts could not satisfy the ever-increasing demand as they were expensive, fragile, and laborious to produce.
Jikji: The Jikji of Korea is among the world's oldest existing books printed with movable metal type (late 14th century).

2.1 Gutenberg and the Printing Press

Johann Gutenberg developed the first-known printing press in Strasbourg, Germany, in the 1430s.

Gutenberg adapted existing technology (olive and wine presses, lead moulds for trinkets) to design his innovation.
The first book printed was the Bible; about 180 copies were printed over three years.
Platen: In letterpress printing, a board pressed onto the back of the paper to get the impression from the type.
Boom in Production: Between 1450 and 1550, printing presses were set up across Europe, leading to a transition from hand printing to mechanical printing, known as the print revolution.

3. The Print Revolution and Its Impact

The print revolution transformed the lives of people, changing their relationship to information, knowledge, and authority.

3.1 A New Reading Public

Printing reduced the cost of books, creating a new, wider reading public.

Oral to Reading Culture: Earlier, common people heard sacred texts read out or listened to ballads and folktales in taverns. Print blurred the line between oral and reading cultures as illustrated books were read aloud to the illiterate.

3.2 Religious Debates and the Fear of Print

Print introduced a new world of debate and discussion, allowing the circulation of ideas that could challenge established authorities.

In 1517, the religious reformer Martin Luther wrote 'Ninety Five Theses' criticising the Roman Catholic Church, leading to the Protestant Reformation.
Luther praised print as "the ultimate gift of God and the greatest one."

3.3 Print and Dissent

Individual interpretations of faith grew among common people, challenging orthodoxies.

Menocchio, a miller in Italy, reinterpreted the Bible and was executed by the Roman Church during the Inquisition.
The Roman Church began maintaining an Index of Prohibited Books from 1558 to control heretical and dissenting publications.

4. The Reading Mania

Through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, literacy rates went up in most parts of Europe, creating a virtual reading mania.

Almanacs: Ritual calendars containing astronomical data and general information.
Chapbooks: Pocket-size books sold by travelling pedlars (chapmen) for a penny in England.
Biliotheque Bleue: Low-priced small books printed on poor quality paper with cheap blue covers in France.
Spread of Ideas: Ideas of scientists (like Isaac Newton) and philosophers (like Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Rousseau) became widely accessible to the common people.

4.1 'Tremble, therefore, tyrants of the world!'

By the mid-eighteenth century, there was a conviction that books were a means of spreading progress and enlightenment, capable of liberating society from despotism.

4.2 Print Culture and the French Revolution

Historians argue that print culture created the conditions for the French Revolution by:

Popularising the critical, rationalist ideas of Enlightenment thinkers.
Creating a new culture of dialogue, debate, and public evaluation of institutions.
Mocking the royalty and criticising their morality through cartoons and caricatures.

5. The Nineteenth Century

Mass literacy in Europe brought large numbers of new readers, especially children, women, and workers.

5.1 Children, Women and Workers

Children: Primary education became compulsory. A children's press was set up in France (1857). The Grimm Brothers in Germany compiled and edited traditional folk tales.
Women: Became important readers and writers. Penny magazines carried manuals on behaviour and housekeeping. Prominent novelists included Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, and George Eliot.
Workers: Lending libraries in England became instruments for educating white-collar workers and artisans.

5.2 Further Innovations

Richard M. Hoe of New York perfected the power-driven cylindrical press, capable of printing 8,000 sheets per hour.
The offset press was developed to print up to six colours at a time.
In the 1920s, popular works were sold in cheap series called the Shilling Series, followed by cheap paperback editions during the Great Depression.

6. India and the World of Print

6.1 Manuscripts Before the Age of Print

India had a rich tradition of handwritten manuscripts in Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, and vernacular languages, written on palm leaves or handmade paper.

Manuscripts were highly expensive, fragile, and difficult to read due to different script styles.

6.2 Print Comes to India

The printing press first came to Goa with Portuguese missionaries in the mid-sixteenth century.
The first Tamil book was printed in 1579 at Cochin, and the first Malayalam book in 1713.
In 1780, James Augustus Hickey began editing the Bengal Gazette, a private weekly English magazine.
The first Indian-published newspaper was the weekly Bengal Gazette, brought out by Gangadhar Bhattacharya.

7. Religious Reform and Public Debates

From the early nineteenth century, intense debates around religious and social issues were carried out in print.

Rammohun Roy published the Sambad Kaumudi (1821) to campaign for reforms, while Hindu orthodoxy commissioned the Samachar Chandrika to oppose him.
In north India, the ulama used cheap lithographic presses to publish Urdu translations of holy scriptures and fatwas to counter colonial influence and conversions.
The first printed edition of Tulsidas's Ramcharitmanas came out from Calcutta in 1810.

8. New Forms of Publication

Printing created an appetite for new kinds of writing, such as novels, lyrics, short stories, and essays on social and political matters.

Visual Culture: Painters like Raja Ravi Varma produced images for mass circulation.
Caricatures and Cartoons: By the 1870s, cartoons commented on social and political issues, ridiculing Westernised Indians and criticising imperial rule.

8.1 Women and Print

Women's reading increased enormously. Conservative families, however, feared that education would lead to rebellion or corruption.
Rashsundari Debi secretly learnt to read and wrote Amar Jiban (1876), the first full-length autobiography in Bengali.
In Maharashtra, Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai wrote with passionate anger about the miserable lives of upper-caste Hindu women.

8.2 Print and the Poor People

Very cheap small books were sold at crossroads in nineteenth-century Madras.
Issues of caste discrimination were highlighted in works like Jyotiba Phule's Gulamgiri (1871).
Kanpur millworker Kashibaba wrote Chhote Aur Bade Ka Sawal (1938) to show links between caste and class exploitation.

9. Print and Censorship

Censorship measures evolved from targeting critical Englishmen to suppressing nationalist publications.

In 1878, the Vernacular Press Act was passed, modelled on the Irish Press Laws, giving the government extensive rights to censor reports and editorials in the vernacular press.
Despite repression, nationalist newspapers grew, reporting on colonial misrule and encouraging nationalist activities (e.g., Balgangadhar Tilak's Kesari).