Technology and Culture From the Renaissance to the Present, Essay Example

The printing press invention in the 15^th century had a huge impact on the world especially in Europe. There were many aspects of printing press which had large impacts which comprises of making the exchange of information accessible and easy. Before the invention of printing press, everything in Europe was read by hand or copied from the blocks of wood hand carved. Thus was time consuming and very expensive. “Printing lent a cumulative and permanent characters to the fifteenth century era.”(Misa)There was a small portion of nobility which was literature and some people that belong to the church were literature. This all changed when Gutenberg Johannes created the Press for printing. He managed to bring the technologies together which for him were known for centuries as he adding the idea of a machine in it. This led to the production of books on massive scale which were made available to the general public as well. “The Renaissance era patrons of technologies were not concerned must with the industrial technologies of labor saving or with the commercial ones of profit spinning.” (Misa)  The printing press invention helped the ideas quickly spread making things convenient and easy for the Church to reform and there was huge development in the sciences of modernism.

Because of the emergence of printing press, the era of ‘Renaissance’ means in French ‘rebirth’ was entered. This era stands for the intellectual, economic and cultural changes that occurred in Europe from the period of 14^th to 16^thcentury.  However this era was not the first rebirth in European society but during the middle Ages there was also a renaissance. In that period cathedrals which were magnificent and beautiful were built using styles of classicism. The universities like Bologna and Oxford were established in 12^th century and the numbers of Arabs were brought to the East by crusaders. “In the 15^th century, printing travelled fact from the cities of Europe like Rome, Venice and Seville. The printers were moved from Budapest and Cracow to Oxford and London.” (Misa).  So, it can be said that renaissance was basically a process that was initiated in the middle Ages. So, the invention of printing press changed the European societies in many ways and led to the era of Renaissance (Misa). A wide range of revealing thoughts and ideas were shared easily due to the printing press invention and communication was made easier. Communication with the globe was made easier also which paved the way of understanding the world in ways unthinkable which were not possible in the Middle Ages. So, “the emergence of Printing press transformed the European society from the era of middle Ages to the era of Renaissance by travelling quickly from one city to other” (Misa). On the other hand it made the information exchange easy and acceptable. This save time and increased the literacy rate among Europeans.

The invention of Gutenberg made a he impact on the public and the world. For starters, the class of nobles looked down on it. For these nobles, the books of hand inked were a sign of grandeur and luxury and it was no match for the mass produced and cheaper books printed by Printing press. “Industrial revolution built the technologies of science based by altering how goods were consumed and produced but also how the society has evolved due to technology” (Misa 151). So, the materials printed were more popular in the lower class. About the printing press when the world came to know, there were new shops of printing established which lead to a totally new trade. Printed texts became the standardized was of information exchange cheaply and quickly to the vast audience. “In this era, the technologies were focused on enhancing, entrenching and stabilizing the existing systems instead of inventing new ones entirely.” (Misa 151)

With the dissemination of ideas and scholars knowledge, politicians figured out that they can gain the interest of the public with the help pf printed pamphlets. One significant impact of this technology is that previously it was common for people to be uneducated. But due to this technology, the rapid increase in knowledge sharing and reading, education became common. This led to the incline of new ideas and discussion (Misa 154). Another important adverse impact was that this technology was mainly responsible for the decline of Latin language as other language regionally became the norm in the materials locally printed (Misa 153).

Works Cited

Misa, Thomas J. Leonardo to the Internet: Technology and Culture from the Renaissance to the Present. JHU Press, 2011.