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Ten reading revolutions that preceded e-books
August 26, 2010 | 7:15 am
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By Chris Meadows
Tim Carmody, late of Snarkmarket, has taken a new posting as media and tech writer at The Atlantic, and has kicked things off with an interesting article looking at ten “reading revolutions” that pre-dated e-books—major or minor events that changed the way people read or wrote, going all the way back to the dawn of recorded history (in fact, one of those revolutions is the invention of the alphabet that was used to record history). (Also worth seeing are the annotations to the photos that illustrate the article, posted to Snarkmarket.)
The invention of the printing press receives prominent mention, of course, but also important was the invention of the codex-style book to replace the rolled scroll. This was made possible by the change from papyrus to parchment to paper, another revolution in itself.
The Industrial Revolution was also a reading revolution, as steam-powered presses and the invention of wood pulp paper made true mass media possible. And even the electronic age saw its own revolution as data storage mediums transformed from vinyl cylinders and discs or huge hard disc drives to smaller tapes and eventually optical media and flash drives. And those are only a few of the ten.
It kind of makes you wonder whether back in Gutenberg’s day anybody was decrying the “death” of the illuminated manuscript.
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Comments:
It kind of makes you wonder whether back in Gutenberg’s day anybody was decrying the “death” of the illuminated manuscript.
They absolutely were, in terms strikingly similar to ours. Nick Carr actually has a decent history of this in his book.
Not only did the decry it the death of the manuscript, they proclaimed that nothing beat the smell of a well-aged scroll.
There is a recent academic book devoted to the emergency of the bound printed book and the social ripples that surrounded it.
Quite properly, it is available in ebook form.
http://www.amazon.com/Book-Renaissance-Prof-Andrew-Pettegree/dp/030011009X
There is some interesting info on the economics of early printing and how many printers went out of business catering to the scholars and academics who were the primary “market” for scrolls and Codexes. The ones that prospered were the ones who went looking for new mass markets instead of focusing on the old ones.