The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Paperback)

by Elizabeth L. Eisenstein (Author) "IN THE LATE FIFTEENTH CENTURY, the reproduction of written materials began to move from the copyist's desk to the printer's workshop..." (more)
Key Phrases: scientific publication programs, trilingual studies, shift from script, Folger Shakespeare Library, Royal Society, Middle Ages (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
'This is a good and important book ... the author's clear and forceful style makes it a pleasure to read.' The New York Review of Books

'... the first comprehensive account of the difference made by the introduction and rapid spread of printing and printers' workshops. ... a useful introduction to the kinds of preliminary question which students might be encouraged to ask ...' Katy Hooper, University of Liverpool

Product Description
What difference did printing make? Although the importance of the advent of printing for the Western world has long been recognized, it was Elizabeth Eisenstein in her monumental, two-volume work, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, who provided the first full-scale treatment of the subject. This illustrated and abridged edition provides a stimulating survey of the communications revolution of the fifteenth century. After summarizing the initial changes, and introducing the establishment of printing shops, it considers how printing effected three major cultural movements: the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the rise of modern science. First Edition Hb (1984) 0-521-25858-8 First Edition Pb (1984) 0-521-27735-3

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Product Details

• Paperback: 406 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 2 edition (September 12, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521607744
• ISBN-13: 978-0521607742
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #463,841 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Astute, insightful scholarship on a crucial topic., September 28, 1998

By	Rolland H. Wright (Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Canto) (Paperback)

Professor Eisenstein has answered a question I have been asking myself for thirty years. I knew that "modern" Europe consisted of institutions based upon the "individual" -- protestantism, capitalism, universal education and modern science -- and that these first arose in Europe about 500 years ago. But I could not answer why then? And why Europe? I suspected that it had to do with the rise of stranger experience but could not locate a convincing historical cause for it. Print literacy first occured to me as the cause when I read Walter Ong's book, "Orality and Literacy," which also happily cited Prof. Eisenstein's work. Her book convincingly implicates the print revolution with the rise of the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation and Modern Science.Her thesis made it easy for me to see how the other three institutions could be included as well and to see the role of print in spreading "individuation" and assumptions associated with it, such as the idea of progress. It is remarkable that historians have apparently ignored for so long the role of print literacy in creating modernity. Scholars, including myself, sometimes seem to find the obvious the most inscrutable. Anyway, my personal and heartfelt thanks go to Professor Eisenstein for answering my nagging question.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Read the *unabridged version*|, October 10, 1999

By	Brad McCormick (Chappaqua, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Canto) (Paperback)

This book is fine, but it doesn't really capture the full power of the unabridged version: "The Printing Press as an Agent of Change" (2 vols in 1; Cambridge Univ. Press -- possibly currently out of print). The unabridged version (which is still much too short!) is one of the great books of the 20th century. I just didn't see the abridged versino as really "bringing home" the significance of Eisenstein's theses about the effects of print technology on Western civilization.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars the last 2 chapters were my favorite, July 31, 2003

By	Morpho menelaus (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Canto) (Paperback)

This is an excellent book to read if you are interested in the history of printing. Eisenstein's thesis is that the advent of the printing press is the most logical point at which the medieval period of European history ends and the Renaissance begins. She shows how many so-called innovations in science, religion, and politics were directly related to the ready availability of books-not necessarily to increased brilliance on the part of mankind.

Eisenstein disagrees with scholars who point to the lag between the press and the beginning of the Renaissance as proof that the press did not make an appreciable difference. Books, Eisenstein says, had to accumulate in order to make their presence felt. The lag was due to a sort of scholarly catch-up. First the printers rushed to issue the volumes that many people wanted but had been unable to afford previously. Once those were printed, disparities could become apparent. Scribes freed from the tedious process of copying books had the leisure to notice errors and disagreements among authors which had not been apparent when books were scattered and rare. This process caused a deceptive lag between the advent of the press and real improvements in cartography and science.

The last two chapters of the book were the most interesting to me. Among other things, Eisenstein talks about the way early Protestant printers beefed out their catalogues by referring to the Catholic Index (the list of books forbidden by the Pope). Once Europe became split into Catholic and Protestant nations, the Index had the unexpected effect of boosting sales for books listed on the Index, making some protestant printers their fortunes. Not only were Protestants eager to read whatever the Pope had banned (and Catholic priests obligingly cited chapter and line of objectionable material, with the result that the protestant scholars were able to cut right to the chase), but many early scientific books on the Index were much sought after in Catholic countries, and with their printers under heavy pressure to forbear, Protestant printers just over the border made a fortune in black-market books.

Eisenstein's style is somewhat pedantic (which was to be expected; this is a thesis, after all). However, I give the book 4 stars instead of 5 because quotes are frequently uncited-a nearly unforgivable sin in a research book. We are frequently given rather large blocks of quoted text with absolutely no way of connecting this material to any given authors in the bibliography. The fact that the book is an abridgement is no excuse.