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This collection of notes is part of [1].
thru ~1650
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Renaissance " a period from the 14th to the 17th century, considered the bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press Gutenberg 1440 "A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. Typically used for texts, the invention of the printing press is widely regarded as one of the most influential events in the second millennium,[1] ushering in the period of modernity.[2]" "The mechanization of bookmaking led to the first mass production of books in Europe.[3] A single Renaissance printing press could produce 3,600 pages per workday,[4] compared to about 2,000 by typographic block-printing prevalent in East Asia,[5] and a few by hand-copying.[6] Books of bestselling authors like Luther or Erasmus were sold by the hundreds of thousands in their lifetime.[7]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press#Economic_conditions_and_intellectual_climate "The rapid economic and socio-cultural development of late medieval society in Europe created favorable intellectual and technological conditions for Gutenberg's invention: the entrepreneurial spirit of emerging capitalism increasingly made its impact on medieval modes of production, fostering economic thinking and improving the efficiency of traditional work-processes. The sharp rise of medieval learning and literacy amongst the middle class led to an increased demand for books which the time-consuming hand-copying method fell far short of accommodating.[12]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press#Technological_factors "Gutenberg may have also been inspired by the paper presses which had spread through the German lands since the late 14th century and which worked on the same mechanical principles.[16]" "The concept of movable type was not new in the 15th century; movable type printing had been invented in China during the Song dynasty, and was later used in Korea during the Goryeo Dynasty, where metal movable-type printing technology was developed in 1234.[19][5] In Europe, sporadic evidence that the typographical principle, the idea of creating a text by reusing individual characters, was well understood and employed in pre-Gutenberg Europe had been cropping up since the 12th century and possibly before. The known examples range from Germany (Prüfening inscription) to England (letter tiles) to Italy.[20] However, the various techniques employed (imprinting, punching and assembling individual letters) did not have the refinement and efficiency needed to become widely accepted." "Another factor conducive to printing arose from the book existing in the format of the codex, which had originated in the Roman period.[24] Considered the most important advance in the history of the book prior to printing itself, the codex had completely replaced the ancient scroll at the onset of the Middle Ages (500 AD).[25] The codex holds considerable practical advantages over the scroll format; it is more convenient to read (by turning pages), is more compact, less costly, and, in particular, unlike the scroll, both recto and verso could be used for writing − and printing.[26]" "A fourth development was the early success of medieval papermakers at mechanizing paper manufacture. The introduction of water-powered paper mills, the first certain evidence of which dates to 1282,[27] allowed for a massive expansion of production and replaced the laborious handcraft characteristic of both Chinese[28] and Muslim papermaking.[29] Papermaking centres began to multiply in the late 13th century in Italy, reducing the price of paper to one sixth of parchment and then falling further; papermaking centers reached Germany a century later.[30]. Despite this it appears that the final breakthrough of paper depended just as much on the rapid spread of movable-type printing.[31] It is notable that codices of parchment, which in terms of quality is superior to any other writing material,[32] still had a substantial share in Gutenberg's edition of the 42-line Bible.[33] After much experimentation, Gutenberg managed to overcome the difficulties which traditional water-based inks caused by soaking the paper, and found the formula for an oil-based ink suitable for high-quality printing with metal type.[34]"
"Around 1040, the world's first known movable type system was created in China by Bi Sheng out of porcelain. He also developed wooden movable type, but it was abandoned in favour of clay movable types due to the presence of wood grains and the unevenness of the wooden type after being soaked in ink.[9][10] Neither movable type system was widely used, one reason being the enormous Chinese character set. Metal movable type began to be used in Korea during the Goryeo Dynasty (around 1230).[11] Jikji was printed during the Goryeo Dynasty in 1377, it is the world's oldest extant book printed with movable metal type.[12] This form of metal movable type was described by the French scholar Henri-Jean Martin as "extremely similar to Gutenberg's".[13] East metal movable type may have spread to Europe between late 14th century and early 15th century.[14][15][16][17][18]
It is traditionally summarized that Johannes Gutenberg, of the German city of Mainz, developed European movable type printing technology with the printing press around 1439[14] and in just over a decade, the European age of printing began. However, the details show a more complex evolutionary process spread over multiple locations.[19] Also, Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer experimented with Gutenberg in Mainz.
Compared to woodblock printing, movable type page-setting was quicker and more durable. The metal type pieces were more durable and the lettering was more uniform, leading to typography and fonts. The high quality and relatively low price of the Gutenberg Bible (1455) established the superiority of movable type, and printing presses rapidly spread across Europe, leading up to the Renaissance, and later all around the world. Today, practically all movable type printing ultimately derives from Gutenberg's movable type printing, which is often regarded as the most important invention of the second millennium.[20]
Gutenberg is also credited with the introduction of an oil-based ink which was more durable than previously used water-based inks. Having worked as a professional goldsmith, Gutenberg made skillful use of the knowledge of metals he had learned as a craftsman. Gutenberg was also the first to make his type from an alloy of lead, tin, and antimony, known as type metal, printer's lead, or printer's metal, which was critical for producing durable type that produced high-quality printed books, and proved to be more suitable for printing than the clay, wooden or bronze types used in East Asia. To create these lead types, Gutenberg used what some considered his most ingenious invention, a special matrix where with the moulding of new movable types with an unprecedented precision at short notice became feasible. Within a year of printing the Gutenberg Bible, Gutenberg also published the first coloured prints.
The invention of the printing press revolutionized communication and book production leading to the spread of knowledge. Rapidly, printing spread from Germany by emigrating German printers, but also by foreign apprentices returning home. A printing press was built in Venice in 1469, and by 1500 the city had 417 printers. In 1470 Johann Heynlin set up a printing press in Paris. In 1473 Kasper Straube published the Almanach cracoviense ad annum 1474 in Kraków. Dirk Martens set up a printing press in Aalst (Flanders) in 1473. He printed a book about the two lovers of Enea Piccolomini who became Pope Pius II. In 1476 a printing press was set up in England by William Caxton."
(my note: could the cause of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence and the answer to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Needham#Needham_Question be simply that alphabetical language is more conducive to movable type printing than ideographs?
"The logistical problems of handling the several thousand logographs (required for full literacy in Chinese language) posed a particular difficulty. It was faster to carve one woodblock per page than to composit a page from so many different types. However, if one used movable type to produce multiple copies of the same document, the speed of printing would increase relatively.[11]:201" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movable_type#Wooden_movable_type_in_China
"Despite the earlier invention in Imperial China of movable type printing technology by the Han Chinese inventor Bi Sheng between the years 1041 - 1048 the influence of Bi Sheng's innovation was limited to East Asia and was not widely adopted due to the extremely large number of ancient Chinese characters used in his movable type printing technology. In contrast, the global spread of the printing press began with the later development of the European version of the movable type printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany in 1450 using the simple 26 letter German alphabet as opposed to Bi Sheng using over 100,000 visually complex individual ancient Chinese characters in the earlier Han Chinese movable type technology. Western printing technology was adopted in all world regions, with the exception of China, by the end of the 19th century, displacing the manuscript and block printing." -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_spread_of_the_printing_press
"For a long time however, movable type printing remained mainly the business of Europeans working from within the confines of their colonies. According to Suraiya Faroqhi, lack of interest and religious reasons were among the reasons for the slow adoption of the printing press outside Europe: Thus, the printing of Arabic, after encountering strong opposition by Muslim legal scholars and the manuscript scribes, remained prohibited in the Ottoman empire between 1483 and 1729, initially even on penalty of death,[4][5] while some movable Arabic type printing was done by Pope Julius II (1503−1512) for distribution among Middle Eastern Christians,[6] and the oldest Qur’an printed with movable type was produced in Venice in 1537/1538 for the Ottoman market.
In India, reports are that Jesuits "presented a polyglot Bible to the Emperor Akbar in 1580 but did not succeed in arousing much curiosity."[7] But also practical reasons seem to have played a role. The English East India Company, for example, brought a printer to Surat in 1675, but was not able to cast type in Indian scripts, so the venture failed.[7]" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_spread_of_the_printing_press#Rest_of_the_world
however, Ming dynasty vernacular fiction and hu shi’s literary revolution, Matthew Miller, http://www.eastasiareview.org/issues/2012/articles/2012_Miller.pdf suggests that in Ming dynasty China, there was reasonably high literacy, and "with cheaply produced paper and a rise in available labor, woodblock printing was able to produce very affordable print materials not out of reach even of ordinary urban workers.76", citing Chow, Kai-wing. Publishing, Culture and Power in Early Modrn China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004, pp. 23, 47, and "early Western travelers to Guangdong noticed the presence of circulating libraries as well" (Rawski, Evelyn. Education and Popular Literacy in Ch’ing China. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1979. pp. 11)
and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_education_in_China#Ming_Dynasty claims "The invention of Paper and Movable type greatly boosted the educational industry."
Needham notes that the Reformation led to an increase in literacy in Europe: "Protestantisn1, with its direct access to God, meant literacy, and \-\lhat began with the necessity of reading the Scriptures ended in the hitherto unheard-of phenomenon of a really literate labour force, so that the class barrier of the written word was swept away, and managers, engineers, artisans and workmen could shade into one another without sharp distinctions. Europe after the Renaissance could almost be thought of as a heap of tindel; and an 'industrial revolution' was bound to follow." (Needham_Joseph_Science_and_Civilisation_in_China_Vol_7-2_General_Conclusions_and_Reflections.pdf pp. 63)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_spread_of_the_printing_press#East_Asia
" 1590 Nagasaki Japan Alessandro Valignano The Jesuits in Nagasaki established The Jesuit Mission Press in Japan and printed a number of books in romanised Japanese language. 1833[69] Macao China The first presses were imported by Western priests for their missionary work from Europe and America. The earliest known, an albion press, was set up in the Portuguese colony Macao and later moved to Canton and Ningbo.[69] "
"By 1500, the printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than twenty million copies" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press#The_Printing_Revolution
"The vast printing capacities meant that individual authors could now become bestsellers: Of Erasmus's work, at least 750,000 copies were sold during his lifetime alone (1469–1536).[44] In the early days of the Reformation, the revolutionary potential of bulk printing took princes and papacy by surprise. In the period from 1518 to 1524, the publication of books in Germany alone increased sevenfold; between 1518 and 1520, Luther's tracts were distributed in 300,000 printed copies.[45] The rapidity of typographical text production, as well as the sharp fall in unit costs, led to the issuing of the first newspapers (see Relation) which opened up an entirely new field for conveying up-to-date information to the public.[46] "
so in summary, my current hypothesis is:
)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habsburgs "The throne of the Holy Roman Empire was continuously occupied by the Habsburgs between 1438 and 1740."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_Reformation Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses, 1517
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Discovery :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_revolution 1543-1687
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint-stock_company#Early_joint-stock_companies "In more recent history, the earliest joint-stock company recognized in England was the Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands, chartered in 1553 with 250 shareholders. Russia's Muscovy Company, which had a monopoly on trade between Moscow and London, was chartered soon after in 1555. The much more famous, wealthy and powerful English (later British) East India Company was granted an English Royal Charter by Elizabeth I on December 31, 1600, with the intention of favouring trade privileges in India. The Royal Charter effectively gave the newly created Honourable East India Company a 15-year monopoly on all trade in the East Indies.[5] The Company transformed from a commercial trading venture to one that ruled India and exploited its resources as it acquired auxiliary governmental and military functions, until its dissolution.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire#.22First.22_British_Empire_.281583.E2.80.931783.29 1583-
Soon afterwards, in 1602, the Dutch East India Company issued shares that were made tradable on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. This invention enhanced the ability of joint-stock companies to attract capital from investors as they could now easily dispose their shares. In 1612 it became the first 'corporation' in intercontinental trade with 'locked in' capital and limited liability."
1605 first newspaper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Carolus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-Reformation "beginning with the Council of Trent (1545–1563) and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War (1648)"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War 1618-1648
English Civil War (1642–1651)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17th-century_philosophy "17th-century philosophy in the Western world is generally regarded as being the start of modern philosophy, and a departure from the medieval approach, especially Scholasticism. Early 17th-century philosophy is often called the Age of Reason or Age of Rationalism and is considered to succeed the Renaissance philosophy era and precede the Age of Enlightenment."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Great_Inventions from China and the 'Three Greatest Inventions'
(also [2] notes that Bacon spoke of printing, gunpowder, compass)
