Dark Blue - 2300 BCE | Dark Green - 1300 BCE | Light Green - 300 BCE

Cuneiform - Mesopotamiacirca 4th millennium BCE

Egyptian Hieroglyphicscirca 4th millenium BCE

Indus Valley Seal circa 2600 BCE

Ancient Chinese Script

1600 BCE

Printing - Early History

• Block Printing - stone and wood

• Existed in Asia and Europe

• Precursor to movable type

Movable Type• First appeared in

China around 1041- Clay type

• Later type was wood (circa 1200) and could be found in East and South Asia

• Metal Type appeared in Korea in the 14th Century

Johannes Gutenberg

• Invented the Movable Type Printing Press

• 1440

• Mainz, Germany

The Printing Press

• McCluhan describes this historical event as the precursor to our Modern World

• The Gutenberg Galaxy

Explosion of Print

• 1500 - 20, 000, 000 Books in Print

• 1600 - 200, 000, 000 Books in Print

Mass Literacy

• urbanization

• printing

• centralized government

Development of Print

• Growth of Vernacular Languages

• Decline of Latin

• Growth in Readership

• Development of New Literary Forms

• Consolidation of the Nation State

Global Literacy Rates - Source: CIA Factbook