"Break up the printing presses and you break up rebellion" - Dudley Nichols

For most people it’s weird to think that technology might exist in 1440 but it most certainly did. Long before the wonder invention we have called a “printer” everything was written by hand. Monks, clerics and priests, the only ones who could read back then, would write out the bible and other such important documents into books. Rather time consuming and if one had a mistake in translation or perhaps some faded text all the rest would, thus losing some of the information. Over time the pages would fray and tatter and the knowledge would be lost forever. Which is why, in my opinion, the printing press is the piece of technology that has left the biggest impact on the world.

Just think about this, some of the first posters and ads for protests were printed using the printing press. The bible was mass produced using the same machine. Literature that was only available to monks, priests and clerics but now it was available to the general public. It would be much more easier for common people to learn to read and write, thus opening a giant door of opportunity to less privileged people. And not only that but it was the great, great grand daddy for so many of the pieces of technology we now use every day.

With the printing press and the ability to mass produce books there would have been no mass production of anything else. Materials would be limited because they would have to be hand made. Child labor for the lose! But no printing press means no anything! No books, which I hold very dear to me, no CD’s, no computers. None of that. The media we now divulge so greatly in wouldn’t exist today without the help of this wonderful piece of machine.

Really though, I love the printing press for the ability to mass produce books let alone the stepping stone it created for future technologies. I am an avid reader and love nothing more than wasting the days away reading in my bedroom. So, yeah, I like that I can have my books because of the printing press. The fact that it was so revolutionary makes it even cooler.

A fun fact: by 1499 there were print-houses in 2,500 cities in Europe.

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Works Cited

Phil Ament. Printing Press. The Great Idea Finder. The Great Idea Finder, 1 May 2007. Web. 14 September 2009.