This was initially fueled by the reproduction of classic texts of antiquity.
It was further fueled by the development of new kinds of books in science.
These factors led to the development of books as elements of propaganda and religious education.
This is not to argue that print drove all those changes. Clearly it did not. There were social and political and economic changes that made print important. Those changes might not have happened as quickly or perhaps at all without print but ...
One of the major shifts in world view that comes from this period in time is the notion that the natural world is just passively waiting for us to appropriate it. As can be seen from the slides, the focus of the map makers shifted from the activity of creating artifacts that explained existence to the creation of artifacts that literally "mapped" the world; maps attempted to objectively represent external reality in the same ways that other scientific texts tried to accomplish.
The shift in consciousness that occurred with this period of history is the rise of the notion that reality could be represented. This period saw the advent and expansion of a European-dominated world economy and the beginning of a system of international competition for trade among independent states.
The technology of the printing press, coupled with the surrounding changes in the political/economic system, wrought changes in the ways in which Western Europe saw its place in the world.
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This page last updated on: Jan 30 1997