Printing, Movable Type, and Books

Printing is important as a means of recording and distributing knowledge and ideas (information) in long-lived visual form and passing it on to future generations. It was not invented by Gutenberg, but his name is associated with it because of the obvious link to the Protestant Reformation and the rise of capitalism. This chapter is about the history of printing, starting with the invention of paper by the Egyptians or the Chinese, the invention of books, and the spread of Bibles, in Europe, and the ideas carried by those Bibles.