Influence of the printing press

Royal typewriter, 1919. Source: Emory Adams, The New Knowledge Library (Chicago: The S. A. Mullikin Company, 1919)159
The invention of movable type printing had massive influence on society. As I have said previously the effect was monumental. The proliferation of printing presses, paper mills, the growth of public libraries, and the availability of knowledge changed virtually every aspect of life, especially in Europe and Britain, and from there slowly influencing the entire world.
The development of metallurgical knowledge had far reaching effects on industry and inventions.

The printing of laws and regulations led to the masses understanding the mechanism of government, standardized legislation, and lead eventually to a democratic system.

The Humanist ideas of secular scholars saw man as noble, and a part of the natural world. The beginnings of the understanding of environmentalism were sewn at that moment, whereas before that humans thought they were here to dominate nature while exorcising their original sin! (some still believe it!). The Humanists inspired philosophical and scientific inquiry as opposed to the Catholic Church's authoritative stance. The availability of so much knowledge broadened the minds of all readers. The logic of scientific process tended to negate the superstitious beliefs of the masses, and society applied these principles of logic to philosophical issues.

Exploration was helped by the printing of more and more reliable maps, as well as printed travelogues which taught people about geography, anthropology, and science.

Science grew in leaps and bounds through the building up of knowledge through being able to read what others were doing even if they lived hundreds or thousands of miles away. Also each generation could build their knowledge by ‘standing on the shoulders’ of the previous generation.

Knowledge became an affordable commodity unlike the middle ages where it was a luxury of the upper classes. This has forever changed the balance of power from an elite few to the direct influence of the citizens of each country. The previous level of ignorance before the printing press, the almost total illiteracy of the majority of people, is almost unimaginable today. The consequences of the common person being able to read and have the reading materials available are incalculable, changing the very nature of thought and decision-making forever. Every technology benefitted from the availablity of knowledge in each field.

The need to find better, faster, more economical ways to print, to make paper, and to cast typeface accelerated invention of these processes. The consequences of the invention of movable-type printing is possibly too great to list here. For instance the proliferation of readers and authors, of both fiction and non-fiction, engravers, cartoonists, journalists, librarians, printers, typesetters, paper makers, inkmakers, booksellers, etc. created a general upsurge of employment in these areas, usually in large towns or cities, and the nouveau riche became patrons of artists, as well as creating more markets for goods and services, and this modernization of society turned the status quo of the church-based culture of the middle ages upside down.

The printing of music gave musicians an unprecedented access to the works of great composers, so that musicians and composers could study these printed music scores and learn from them, inspiring both more music and innovative composing, and the distributing of new works.

The Ottoman Empire from Istanbul to the east and from the Balkans to Egypt, was a fairly enlightened society, for instance having a religious tolerance. (Their skirmishes with Persians, the area of present day Iran, stopped the western expansion of the Ottomans into Europe.)
But the Turks and Arabs banned the printing of books in Turkish or Arabic. This civilization showed little interest in other cultures outside their borders, and only paid attention to innovations in the military and naval fields. Many Turkish officials were illiterate. This disinterest in and suppression of new knowledge and inventions and ideas caused the middle east area to fall behind Europe in development for centuries. It was the French influence in Egypt in the 1800's that changed this, beginning printing in Arabic and Turkish, and a secularization and modernizing of Middle-Eastern culture started from there.

My process
Once again, I read to inform myself, and also at this point, with the amount of accumulated knowledge, could summarize from all my readings and notes, referring back to the reference books listed on past blogs as well as this new addition to my resources listed below.
I decided to decorate the side bar with clipart, and to do this I had to cut and paste the clipart, then the description, then figure out what order to put them in to the side bar, then upload them from last to first, as this seemed the only way to get them in the order I want. The blog's sidebar doesn't seem to let you move the order of the pictures around once it is in place. Also you can't just cut and paste an image, it must be either a webpage or downloaded onto your computer first.

Resources
Mansfield, P 1991, A History of the Middle East, Viking, London.