The history of the book presents us with a complete, observable communications revolution. The historical record is such that we can watch the whole of a vast socio-cultural, political and economic change happen over a period of some three to five hundred years. By following the developments in manuscript and print book production, tied to the changes in the technologies used to produce those texts, we can also chart the various changes in social organization, politics and economics from the feudalism of the 7th century, through to the advent and advance of early capitalism in the 15th century.



Four Important Periods in the History of the Book

I. 7th to 13th Century:
The age of religious "manuscript" book production. Books in this period are entirely constructed by hand, and were largely religious texts.

II. 13th to 15th Century:
Witnessed the secularization of book production and this was driven by two factors.
    1. The rise of universities in Europe, spreading from Italy.
    2. The return of the crusaders in the 13th century, who brought with them texts from byzantium. These books, written during the greek and roman periods in history, focused on this-world concerns.

III. 15th to 16th Century:
The first printed books took birth & these were print versions of traditional works like the bible, and the religious calendars.

IV. 16th to 17th Century:
Saw new information compiled into books that held important consequences of European life and society.

Evolution

In the Mid-15th Century, things began to change with the advent of the printing press. In 1452, Gutenberg conceives the idea for movable type with the introduction of paper and combination of oil- based ink and wine paper to print books.

The other inventions brought together by Gutenberg in his pursuit of a printing press were:
    • The adaptation for printing, of the wine or olive oil, screw-type press        that had been in use for hundreds of years, throughout Europe and         Asia.
    • The adaptation of block-print technology - known in Europe since         the return of Marco Polo from Asia at the end of the 13th century.
    • The development of mass production paper-making techniques.         Paper were brought from China to Italy in the 12th century, but was         considered too flimsy for books.

Prior to the advent of the printing press, books were made of vellum which proved to be expensive. Existence of oil based inks was sighted around during the 10th century, but was smeared on the vellum in making books.

The religious manuscripts used an egg-based tempura and were not feasible for printing with type. Gutenberg's contribution to printing was the development of a punch and mold system which allowed the mass production of the movable type used to reproduce a page of text.

The printing press is not a single invention. It is aggregation of technologies in one place known for centuries before Gutenberg.