Ch. 7 Print Culture and Modern World Questions and Answers
Q. Where did print develop first?
A. The earliest kind of print technology developed in China, Japan and Korea.
Q. How were books prepared in ancient India?
A. In ancient India, books were prepared in the form handwritten manuscripts. These manuscripts were copied on palm leaves or on handmade paper.
Q. For what purpose did china first publish books?
A. China first published textbooks for the civil services examinations conducted there to recruit bureaucratic personnel.
Q. Name the first Japanese book published? What was it about?
A. The first Japanese book published was the Diamond Sutra printed in 868 AD. It was a Buddhist scripture.
Q. Name the first printed book in Europe.
A. The first book printed in Europe was the Bible printed by Gutenberg.
Q. What was the old name of Tokyo?
A. Tokyo's old name was Edo.
Q. Who was Martin Luther?
A. Martin Luther was a religious reformer who was a pioneer of the Protestant Reformation of the 16th-century.
Q. What was shilling series?
A. Shilling series were cheap series, sold in England in the 1920s, in which popular works were printed.
Q. Who were chapmen?
A. Chapmen were the travelling pedlars who used to sell cheap pocket-sized books called chapbooks. These became popular from the time of the 16th-century print revolution.
Q. When and why was the vernacular press act passed?
A. The Vernacular Press Act was passed in 1878, modelled on the Irish Press Laws, to give the government extensive rights to censor reports and editorials in the vernacular press.
Q. Who spread print to Japan?
A. The Buddhist missionaries from China introduced hand-printing technology into Japan around 768-770 AD.
Q. Name 2 Indian writers who wrote against the caste system.
A. 2 prominent Indian writers who wrote against the caste system were B.R. Ambedkar and Kashibaba amongst others.
Q. When and which magazine was first published by Raja Ram Mohan Roy?
A. The magazine published by Raja Ram Mohan Roy was Sambad Kaumudi published from 1921.
Q. What visual images were printed in India in the 19th century?
A. In 19th century India, visual images were printed on social and political issues. While some caricatures ridiculed the educated Indians' fascination with Western tastes and clothes, while others expressed the fear of social change. There were nationalist cartoons criticising imperial rule and vice versa.
Q. When and who brought the printing press to India in the 19th century?
A. The printing press was brought to India by the Portuguese missionaries. They brought the printing press to Goa in the mid 16th century.
Q. Who wrote the first autobiography in Bengali and when was it published?
A. The first Bengali autobiography was written by Rashsundar Debi titled Amar Jiban. It was published in 1876.
Q. What was the Reformation movement?
A. The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century movement to reform the Catholic Church dominated by Rome. This movement gave rise to several traditions of anti-Catholic Christianity.
A. The earliest kind of print technology developed in China, Japan and Korea.
Q. How were books prepared in ancient India?
A. In ancient India, books were prepared in the form handwritten manuscripts. These manuscripts were copied on palm leaves or on handmade paper.
Q. For what purpose did china first publish books?
A. China first published textbooks for the civil services examinations conducted there to recruit bureaucratic personnel.
Q. Name the first Japanese book published? What was it about?
A. The first Japanese book published was the Diamond Sutra printed in 868 AD. It was a Buddhist scripture.
Q. Name the first printed book in Europe.
A. The first book printed in Europe was the Bible printed by Gutenberg.
Q. What was the old name of Tokyo?
A. Tokyo's old name was Edo.
Q. Who was Martin Luther?
A. Martin Luther was a religious reformer who was a pioneer of the Protestant Reformation of the 16th-century.
Q. What was shilling series?
A. Shilling series were cheap series, sold in England in the 1920s, in which popular works were printed.
Q. Who were chapmen?
A. Chapmen were the travelling pedlars who used to sell cheap pocket-sized books called chapbooks. These became popular from the time of the 16th-century print revolution.
Q. When and why was the vernacular press act passed?
A. The Vernacular Press Act was passed in 1878, modelled on the Irish Press Laws, to give the government extensive rights to censor reports and editorials in the vernacular press.
Q. Who spread print to Japan?
A. The Buddhist missionaries from China introduced hand-printing technology into Japan around 768-770 AD.
Q. Name 2 Indian writers who wrote against the caste system.
A. 2 prominent Indian writers who wrote against the caste system were B.R. Ambedkar and Kashibaba amongst others.
Q. When and which magazine was first published by Raja Ram Mohan Roy?
A. The magazine published by Raja Ram Mohan Roy was Sambad Kaumudi published from 1921.
Q. What visual images were printed in India in the 19th century?
A. In 19th century India, visual images were printed on social and political issues. While some caricatures ridiculed the educated Indians' fascination with Western tastes and clothes, while others expressed the fear of social change. There were nationalist cartoons criticising imperial rule and vice versa.
Q. When and who brought the printing press to India in the 19th century?
A. The printing press was brought to India by the Portuguese missionaries. They brought the printing press to Goa in the mid 16th century.
Q. Who wrote the first autobiography in Bengali and when was it published?
A. The first Bengali autobiography was written by Rashsundar Debi titled Amar Jiban. It was published in 1876.
Q. What was the Reformation movement?
A. The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century movement to reform the Catholic Church dominated by Rome. This movement gave rise to several traditions of anti-Catholic Christianity.
Q. Write a short note on:
a) The Gutenberg Press
A. ・ The major breakthrough occurred at Strasbourg, Germany where Johann Gutenberg developed the first known printing press in the 1430s. He was the son of a merchant and grew up on a large agricultural estate.
・ From his childhood, he had seen wine and olive presses. Drawing on his knowledge he adapted existing technology to design his innovation.
・ The olive press provided the model for the printing press and moulds were used for casting the metal types for the letters of the Roman alphabet. He also devised a way of moving them around so as to compose different words of the text. This came to be known as the movable type printing machine. By 1448, Guttenberg perfected the system.
・ This remained the basic print technology over the next 300 years. books could now be produced much faster than was possible with woodblock printing. The Guttenberg press could print 250 sheets on one side per hour.
・ The first book he printed was the Bible. About 180 copies were printed and it took three years to produce them. By the standards of those times, this was fast production.
b) The Vernacular Press Act, 1878
A. ・After the revolt of 1857, the attitude to freedom of the press changed. Enraged Englishmen demanded a clamp down on the ‘native’ press.
・ As vernacular newspapers became assertively nationalist, the colonial government began debating measures of stringent control. In 1878, the Vernacular Press Act was passed, modelled on the Irish Press Laws.
・ It provided the government with extensive rights to censor reports and editorials in the vernacular press.
・ From now on the government kept regular track of the vernacular newspapers published in different provinces.
・When a report was judged as seditious, the newspaper was warned, and if the warning was ignored, the press was liable to be seized and the printing machinery confiscated.
Q. What were the effects of the spread of print culture for poor people in 19th century India?
A. ・Very cheap small books were brought to markets in nineteenth-century Madras towns and sold at crossroads, allowing poor people travelling to markets to buy them.
・ Public libraries were set up from the early twentieth century, expanding the access to books. These libraries were located mostly in cities and towns, and at times in prosperous villages.
・Issues of caste discrimination began to be written about in many printed tracts and essays. Jyotiba Phule, the Maratha pioneer of ‘low caste’ protest movements, wrote about the injustices of the caste system in his Gulamgiri (1871).
・Kashibaba, a Kanpur millworker, wrote and published Chhote Aur Bade Ka Sawal in 1938 to show the links between caste and class exploitation.
・Another Kanpur millworker, Sudarshan Chakra, published a collection of his poems called Sacchi Kavitayan between 1935 and 1955.
・By the 1930s, Bangalore cotton millworkers set up libraries to educate themselves, following the example of Bombay workers.
Q. Explain how print culture assisted the growth of nationalism in India.
A.・Despite repressive measures, nationalist newspapers grew in numbers in all parts of India.
・They reported on colonial misrule and encouraged nationalist activities. Attempts to throttle nationalist criticism provoked militant protest. This, in turn, led to a renewed cycle of persecution and protests.
・When Punjab revolutionaries were deported in 1907, Balgangadhar Tilak wrote with great sympathy for them in his Kesari. This led to his imprisonment in 1908, provoking, in turn, widespread protests all over India.
・All this was possible only because of the print culture. Thus print culture assisted the growth of the nationalist movement in India.
Q. Explain any 3 advantages of print.
A. Advantages of print are:
・Print technology has made information and knowledge accessible to more and more people. This has made the people more informed and has increased the intellectual level of people.
・It has made it possible to spread literacy to large masses of the population. Without printed material, it would have been difficult to do so.
・Print has given rise to new forms of literature such as novels, magazines, essays etc. which have replaced the old tradition of oral recitation of literature.
Q. Why did printing become popular in China?
A. Printing became popular in China due to the following reasons:
・China possessed a huge bureaucratic system which recruited its personnel through civil service examinations. Textbooks for this examination were printed in vast numbers under the sponsorship of the imperial state. From the sixteenth century, the number of examination candidates went up and that increased the volume of print.
・This new reading culture was accompanied by a new technology. Western printing techniques and mechanical presses were imported in the late nineteenth century as Western powers established their outposts in China. Shanghai became the hub of the new print culture, catering to the Western-style schools.
Q. The new technology did not replace the art of producing books by hand. Explain.
A.・The new technology did not replace the art of producing books by hand. Printed books at first closely resembled the written manuscripts in appearance and layout. The metal letters imitated the ornamental handwritten styles. Borders were illuminated by hand with foliage and other patterns, and illustrations were painted.
・In the books printed for the rich, space for decoration as kept blank on the printed page. Each purchaser could choose the design and decide on the painting school that would do the illustrations.
・Between 1450 and 1550, printing presses were set up in most countries of Europe. Printers from Germany travelled to other countries, seeking work and helping start new presses. As the number of printing presses grew, book production boomed. The second half of the 15th century saw 20 million copies of printed books flooding the markets in Europe. The number went up to 200 million in the 16th century.
Q. What were the limitations of handwritten books?
A. Limitations of handwritten books were-
・The production of handwritten manuscripts/books could not satisfy the ever-increasing demand for books. Copying was an expensive, laborious and time consuming business.
・Manuscripts were fragile, awkward to handle, and could not be carried around or read easily. Their circulation therefore remained limited.
・Production of handwritten manuscripts were not practical as new printing techniques like woodblock printing were introduced.
Q. What role did print play in the Protestant Reformation?
A.・In 1517, the religious reformer Martin Luther wrote Ninety Five theses criticising many of the practices and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church. A printed copy of this was posted on a church door in Wittenberg. It challenged the Church to debate his ideas.
・Luther's writings were immediately reproduced in vast numbers and read widely. This led to a division within the Church and to the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Luther's translation of the New Testament sold 5000 copies within a few weeks and a second edition appeared within three months.
・Thus it was print that brought about a new intellectual atmosphere and helped spread the new ideas that led to the Reformation. Deeply, grateful to print, Luther rightly proclaimed 'Printing is the ultimate gift of God and the greatest one.'
Q. Explain any 3 advantages of print.
A. Advantages of print are:
・Print technology has made information and knowledge accessible to more and more people. This has made the people more informed and has increased the intellectual level of people.
・It has made it possible to spread literacy to large masses of the population. Without printed material, it would have been difficult to do so.
・Print has given rise to new forms of literature such as novels, magazines, essays etc. which have replaced the old tradition of oral recitation of literature.
Q. Why did printing become popular in China?
A. Printing became popular in China due to the following reasons:
・China possessed a huge bureaucratic system which recruited its personnel through civil service examinations. Textbooks for this examination were printed in vast numbers under the sponsorship of the imperial state. From the sixteenth century, the number of examination candidates went up and that increased the volume of print.
・By the seventeenth century, as urban culture bloomed in China, the
uses of print diversified. Merchants used print in their everyday life, as they collected trade information. Reading increasingly became a leisure activity. The new readership preferred fictional narratives, poetry, autobiographies, anthologies of literary masterpieces, and romantic plays. Wives of scholar-officials published their works and courtesans wrote about their lives.
・This new reading culture was accompanied by a new technology. Western printing techniques and mechanical presses were imported in the late nineteenth century as Western powers established their outposts in China. Shanghai became the hub of the new print culture, catering to the Western-style schools.
Q. The new technology did not replace the art of producing books by hand. Explain.
A.・The new technology did not replace the art of producing books by hand. Printed books at first closely resembled the written manuscripts in appearance and layout. The metal letters imitated the ornamental handwritten styles. Borders were illuminated by hand with foliage and other patterns, and illustrations were painted.
・In the books printed for the rich, space for decoration as kept blank on the printed page. Each purchaser could choose the design and decide on the painting school that would do the illustrations.
・Between 1450 and 1550, printing presses were set up in most countries of Europe. Printers from Germany travelled to other countries, seeking work and helping start new presses. As the number of printing presses grew, book production boomed. The second half of the 15th century saw 20 million copies of printed books flooding the markets in Europe. The number went up to 200 million in the 16th century.
Q. What were the limitations of handwritten books?
A. Limitations of handwritten books were-
・The production of handwritten manuscripts/books could not satisfy the ever-increasing demand for books. Copying was an expensive, laborious and time consuming business.
・Manuscripts were fragile, awkward to handle, and could not be carried around or read easily. Their circulation therefore remained limited.
・Production of handwritten manuscripts were not practical as new printing techniques like woodblock printing were introduced.
Q. What role did print play in the Protestant Reformation?
A.・In 1517, the religious reformer Martin Luther wrote Ninety Five theses criticising many of the practices and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church. A printed copy of this was posted on a church door in Wittenberg. It challenged the Church to debate his ideas.
・Luther's writings were immediately reproduced in vast numbers and read widely. This led to a division within the Church and to the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Luther's translation of the New Testament sold 5000 copies within a few weeks and a second edition appeared within three months.
・Thus it was print that brought about a new intellectual atmosphere and helped spread the new ideas that led to the Reformation. Deeply, grateful to print, Luther rightly proclaimed 'Printing is the ultimate gift of God and the greatest one.'
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