{"id":245,"date":"2015-01-01T13:06:29","date_gmt":"2015-01-01T17:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mazamedia.com\/reading\/?p=245"},"modified":"2026-06-12T00:11:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T04:11:31","slug":"the-gutenberg-revolution-how-printing-changed-the-course-of-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mazamedia.com\/reading\/?p=245","title":{"rendered":"The Gutenberg Revolution: How Printing Changed the Course of History"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0553819666\/\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/mazamedia.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/5145uCZDB9L._SL160_.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"103\" height=\"160\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-246\" \/><\/a><strong>John Man (2009)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In 1450, all Europe&#8217;s books were handcopied and amounted to only a few thousand. By 1500, they were printed and numbered in their millions. The invention of Johann Gutenberg had caused a revolution: printing by movable type. Born in 1400 in Mainz, Germany, Gutenberg struggled against a background of plague and religious upheaval to bring his remarkable invention to light. His story is full of paradoxes: his ambition was to reunite all Christendom, but his invention shattered it; he aimed to make a fortune, but was cruelly denied the fruits of his life&#8217;s work. Yet history remembers him as a visionary; his discovery marks the beginning of the modern world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John Man (2009) In 1450, all Europe&#8217;s books were handcopied and amounted to only a few thousand. By 1500, they were printed and numbered in their millions. The invention of Johann Gutenberg had caused a revolution: printing by movable type. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/mazamedia.com\/reading\/?p=245\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14,8,6,11,23,12,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-design","category-history","category-language","category-media","category-printmaking","category-technology","category-typography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mazamedia.com\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mazamedia.com\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mazamedia.com\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mazamedia.com\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mazamedia.com\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mazamedia.com\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1167,"href":"https:\/\/mazamedia.com\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions\/1167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mazamedia.com\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mazamedia.com\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mazamedia.com\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}