The invention of movable type printing is of great significance. The main driving force of this invention is that during the period from 1200 to 1400, parchment was replaced by paper as the main writing material in Europe. Parchment is made of precious leather from farm animals, which is extremely expensive: since a farm animal can only get four high-quality parchments, copying a Bible requires killing 200 to 300 sheep or calves! Paper is made by grinding rags into pulp, and its cost and price are much cheaper than parchment. Archives in the late Middle Ages show that the price of paper is only one sixth of that of parchment. Correspondingly, the cost of learning to read and write is also reduced. A printing factory. Selected from the title page of a Paris publication, 1520 will be able to read and hyphenate more and more, and the demand for cheaper paper is increasing, and the invention of movable type printing around 1450 fully meets this requirement. By greatly saving labor, this invention reduced the price of printed books to one-fifth of that of handwritten books in about 20 years.

Once books are no longer imported and more people can read them, book culture has become a basic aspect of European lifestyle. Without the large-scale printing from 65438 to Nuremberg in the 1950s, neither the Renaissance nor the Reformation could have had such a wide influence. noodle After about 1500 years, Europeans have the ability to read and buy all kinds of books-not only religious pamphlets, but also instructions and entertainment books; 18th century, there are newspapers. Printing makes the spread of ideas rapid and reliable; In addition, once revolutionary ideas are printed in hundreds, they can no longer be put out easily. Therefore, Martin Luther, the greatest religious reformer in16th century, was able to have a group of followers all over Germany at once because he used book printing and publishing institutions to widely distribute his pamphlets: if it were not for printing, Martin Luther might be executed like Huss. The spread of books also promoted the development of cultural nationalism. Before the invention of printing, there were many dialects in most European countries, which were so different that even people who were thought to speak the same language could hardly talk to each other. This situation hinders political centralization, because a royal servant may not be able to talk to the residents of the provinces at all. But soon after the invention of printing, European countries began to form their own language standards and spread them through books. "Standard English" is the language used in printed matter in London, which spread to Yorkshire or Wales. In this way, people's communication is more convenient and government work is more efficient than in the past.

65438+The first important movable type printed by John Gutenberg in the mid-5th century. It is called the 42-line Bible because the first column has 42 lines. At the end of this chapter, we can say that clocks and books, like cannons and ocean-going ships, have promoted Europe's dominant position in the world after 1500. The habit of clock cultivation urges Europeans to work efficiently and make plans accurately; The popularity of books has greatly promoted the exchange and dissemination of progressive ideas. Once they get used to reading, Europeans have a unique exchange of ideas and attempts among all ethnic groups in the world. Therefore, it is not surprising that 1500 years later, Europeans will be able to take the whole world into their own hands.