Class 10 History Chapter 5, Print Culture and the Modern World, traces the history of print from woodblock printing in China, Japan and Korea to Johann Gutenberg’s movable metal type press in Germany (1448), the Print Revolution, the Protestant Reformation and French Revolution, 19th-century mass literacy, and the arrival and impact of print in India.
What Class 10 Social Science (History) Chapter 5 Covers
1. The First Printed Books & 2. Print Comes to Europe traces hand/woodblock printing in China from AD 594 (accordion book), imperial civil service examinations, Buddhist missionaries introducing print to Japan around AD 768–770 (the **Buddhist Diamond Sutra of AD 868, the oldest Japanese book, and Kitagawa Utamaro’s ukiyo prints), Marco Polo bringing woodblock knowledge to Italy in 1295, and Johann Gutenberg developing the first mechanical movable-type printing press at Strasbourg/Mainz by 1448 (printing $180$ copies of the Gutenberg Bible**).
3. The Print Revolution and Its Impact, 4. Reading Mania & 5. The Nineteenth Century explains how print created a new reading public, how Martin Luther wrote his Ninety Five Theses in 1517 launching the Protestant Reformation (‘Printing is the ultimate gift of God and the greatest one’), why the Roman Catholic Church reacted with the Inquisition (executing Italian miller Menocchio) and the Index of Prohibited Books (1558), how print culture contributed to the French Revolution (Voltaire and Rousseau), and how 19th-century chapbooks, Bibliothèque Bleue, Grimm Brothers folk tales, Penny Magazines, Richard M. Hoe’s power-driven cylindrical press and cheap paperback editions transformed reading for children, women and workers.
6. India and the World of Print, 7. Religious Reform, 8. New Forms of Publication & 9. Print and Censorship traces the arrival of the first printing press in Goa with Portuguese missionaries in the mid-16th century, James Augustus Hickey’s Bengal Gazette (1780), Rammohun Roy’s Sambad Kaumudi (1821) vs Samachar Chandrika, the Deoband Seminary (1867) and Naval Kishore Press, **Rashsundari Debi’s Amar Jiban (1876, first full-length autobiography in Bengali), Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai, Jyotiba Phule’s *Gulamgiri*** (1871), B.R. Ambedkar, Periyar, Kashibaba’s Chhote Aur Bade Ka Sawal (1938), and the Vernacular Press Act (1878) modelled on the Irish Press Laws (and Balgangadhar Tilak’s Kesari).
Exercises in Chapter 5
- Write in Brief & Discuss (7 Questions) give reasons for woodblock print coming to Europe after 1295, Martin Luther’s praise of print, the Roman Catholic Church keeping the Index of Prohibited Books from the mid-16th century, Gandhi saying the fight for Swaraj is a fight for liberty of speech/press/association, short notes on the Gutenberg Press, Erasmus’s idea of the printed book and the Vernacular Press Act, and the impact of print culture on women, the poor and reformers in 19th-century India.
Read Class 10 Social Science (History) Chapter 5 Online
More Chapters
- Previous: Chapter 4: The Age of Industrialisation
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FAQ
How did print culture create the conditions within which the French Revolution occurred?
Historians offer three main arguments: (1) Print popularised the ideas of the Enlightenment thinkers (such as Voltaire and Rousseau), who criticised tradition, superstition and despotism and argued for the rule of reason and rationality; (2) Print created a new culture of dialogue and debate in which all existing values, norms and institutions were re-evaluated by a questioning public; and (3) By the 1780s there was an outpouring of literature, cartoons and caricatures that mocked the royalty’s morality and exposed their luxurious life while the common people suffered.
What was the Vernacular Press Act of 1878 and why was it passed?
Passed in 1878 by the British colonial government (modelled on the Irish Press Laws) after the Revolt of 1857 as vernacular newspapers became assertively nationalist, the Vernacular Press Act provided the government with extensive rights to censor reports and editorials in the vernacular press. If a report was judged seditious, the newspaper was warned, and if the warning was ignored, the press was liable to be seized and the printing machinery confiscated.