CBSE Class 10 Social Science Print Culture and Modern World Assignment Set A

Printed material are everywhere around us. Books, journals, newspapers, prints of paintings, school circulars, calendars, diaries, advertisements and many more. Nowadays we take out computer prints whenever we wish to. It is important for us to realize that there was a time when printing was simply not there.

5.1 THE FIRST PRINTED BOOKS

China
- Earliest printing technology developed in China, Japan and Korea.
- In 594 AD wooden block printing was done in China.
- Only one side of the thin porous sheet was printed, so two sheets had to be stitched on the sides.
- Calligraphy the art of beautiful writing developed.
- Imperial state of China was a major producer of printed material.
- Printing diversified because of expanding urban culture.
- Merchants used printed material to get trade related information.
- Reading of fiction, poetry, biographies, anthologies, etc., became a popular leisure activity.

Japan
- Hand printing was introduced by Buddhist missionaries from China 768-770 AD.
- Diamond Sutra the oldest Buddhist book was printed in 868 AD. It had six sheets of text and woodcut illustrations.
- Pictures were printed on textile, playing cards and paper money. In medieval Japan, poets and prose writers were regularly published, and books were cheap and freely available.
- In the late 18th century, in urban circles at Edo (Tokyo), illustrated collections of paintings depicted an elegant urban culture, involving artists, courtesans, and teahouse gatherings. Libraries were packed with hand-printed books on women, musical instruments, calculations, tea ceremony, flower arrangements, proper etiquette, cooking and famous places.

5.2 PRINT COMES TO EUROPE

Marco Polo was a great explorer from Italy. He returned from China in 1295 and brought the knowledge of woodblock printing to Italy. Thus, printing began in Italy and travelled to other parts of Europe. Vellum however, was still the preferred material for printing for the rich elite.

Production of handwritten manuscripts was also organized in new ways to meet the increasing demand. Skilled hand writers were increasingly employed by booksellers. More than 50 scribes often worked for one bookseller. But copying was an expensive, laborious and time-consuming business. Manuscripts were fragile, awkward to handle, and could not be carried around or read easily.
With the growing demand for books, woodblock printing gradually became more and more popular. By the early fifteenth century, woodblocks were being widely used in Europe to print textiles, playing cards, and religious pictures with simple, brief texts. Calligraphy was gradually being replaced.

There was clearly a great need for even quicker and cheaper reproduction of texts. The breakthrough occurred at Strasbourg, Germany, where Johann Gutenberg developed the first-known printing press in the 1430s.

Gutenberg and the Printing Press
- Gutenberg used his knowledge of making lead mounts and perfected the system by 1448. The first book printed by him was the Bible.
- Initially, the printed books resembled the written manuscripts in appearance and layout.
In the hundred years between 1450 and 1550, printing presses were set up in most parts of Europe. The growth of the print industry was so good that about 20 million books appeared in the European markets in the second half of the fifteenth century. In the sixteenth century, this number went up to about 200 million copies.

5.3 THE PRINT REVOLUTION AND ITS IMPACTS

A New Reading Public
- Printing reduced the cost of books. The time and labor required to produce each book came down, and multiple copies could be produced with greater ease.
- Books flooded the market. Now books were available to a very large readership of common people. Earlier, reading was restricted to the elites.
- Earlier the common people lived in a world of oral culture. They heard sacred texts, ballads, and folk tales. Knowledge was transferred orally. Before the age of print, books were not only expensive but they could not be produced in sufficient numbers.
- With abundant supply of books, the hearing  public, became reading public.

- We must remember that literacy levels were low. However, even those who did not read could certainly enjoy listening to books being read out. So, printers began publishing popular ballads and folk tales, and such books would be profusely illustrated with pictures. These were then sung and recited at gatherings in villages and in taverns in towns. Oral culture thus entered print and printed material was orally transmitted. The line separating the oral and reading cultures became blurred. And the hearing public and reading public became intermingled.

Religious Debates and Fear of Print

- Print created the possibility of wide circulation of ideas, debate and discussion. Even those who disagreed with established authorities could now print and circulate their ideas.

- Not everyone welcomed the printed book. Many were apprehensive of the effects that the easier access to the printed word and the wider circulation of books, could have on people’s minds. It was feared that if there was no control over what was printed then rebellious and irreligious thoughts might spread, leading to destruction of authority of ‘valuable’ literature.

- In 1517, the religious reformer Martin Luther wrote ‘Ninety Five Theses’ criticizing many of the practices and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church. Luther’s writings were immediately reproduced in vast numbers and read widely. This was the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Luther’s translation of the New Testament sold 5,000 copies within a few weeks. Deeply grateful to print, Luther said, ‘Printing is the ultimate gift of God and the greatest one.’
- Several scholars, in fact, think that print brought about a new intellectual atmosphere and helped spread the new ideas that led to the Reformation.

Print and Dissent

- Reading of religious literature stimulated many distinctive individual interpretations of faith.
- In the sixteenth century, Menocchio, a miller in Italy, began to read books that were available in his locality. He reinterpreted the message of the Bible and formulated a view of God and Creation that enraged the Roman Catholic Church.

- The Roman Church, troubled by such questionings of faith, imposed controls over publishers and booksellers and began to maintain an Index of Prohibited Books from

5.4 THE READING MANIA

- During the 17th and 18th century literacy rates went up to as much as 60 to 80 % in some parts of Europe. This led to a virtual reading mania and printers produced books in everincreasing numbers.

- New forms of popular literature appeared, targeting new audiences. Booksellers employed peddlers who roamed around villages, carrying little books for sale. Different forms of reading matter, largely for entertainment, began to reach ordinary readers in addition to almanacs, folktales, ballads, etc.

- In England, penny chapbooks were sold by petty peddlers known as chapmen, for a penny, so that even the poor could buy. In France the ‘Biliotheque Bleue’, which were low-priced small books printed on poor quality paper, became popular.

- Romances, printed on four to six pages, and the more substantial ‘histories’ which were stories about the past were popularly sold.‘Tremble, therefore, tyrants of the world!’
By the mid-eighteenth century, there was a common understanding that books were a means of spreading progress and enlightenment.

- Many believed that reading books could liberate the society from despotism and tyranny, and change the world for better.
- Louise-Sebastien Mercier, a novelist in the 18th
- century France, declared that ‘The printing press is the most powerful engine of progress and public opinion is the force that will sweep despotism away.’ He proclaimed: ‘Tremble, therefore, tyrants of the world! Tremble before the virtual writer!’

Print Culture and the French Revolution

- Many historians have argued that print culture created the conditions leading to the French Revolution. Three types of arguments are :

- First: Print popularized the ideas of the great thinkers. They were critical on tradition, superstition and despotism. They argued for the rule of reason and rationality. They attacked the sacred authority of the Church and the despotic power of the state, thus eroding the legitimacy of traditional social order. The writings of Voltaire and Rousseau made people see the world through questioning, critical and rational eyes.

- Second : Print created a new culture of dialogue and debate. All values, norms and institutions were re-evaluated and discussed by a public that had become aware of the power of reason and recognized the need to question existing ideas and beliefs. This brought the idea of social revolution.

- Third : By the 1780s there was a huge amount of literature that mocked the royalty and criticized their morality and raised questions about the social order.

There can be no doubt that print helps the spread of ideas. But people read different kinds of literature which included the ideas of Voltaire and Rousseau, but they were also exposed to monarchical and Church propaganda. They accepted some ideas and rejected others. They interpreted things their own way thus reading opened up the possibility of thinking differently for the people.

5.5 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

There was vast leap in mass literacy in Europe in the nineteenth century. This brought a large numbers of new readers among children, women and workers.

- Children became an important category of readers as primary education was made compulsory. Production of school textbooks became critical for the publishing industry. A children’s press, devoted to literature for children alone, was set up in France in 1857. This press published new works as well as old fairy tales and folk tales. The Grimm Brothers in Germany spent years compiling traditional folk tales gathered from peasants. What they collected was edited before the stories were published in a collection in 1812.

- Anything that was considered unsuitable was not included in the published version. In this way, print recorded old tales but also changed them.
- Women became important as readers as well as writers. Penny magazines were especially meant for women, as were manuals teaching proper behavior and housekeeping.

- When novels began to be written in the nineteenth century, women were seen as important readers. Some of the best known novelists were women: Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, George Eliot. Their writings became important in defining a new type of woman: a person with will, strength of personality, determination and the power to think.

- In the 19th century, lending libraries in England became instruments for educating white-collar workers, artisans and lowermiddle- class people. Sometimes, self-educated working class people wrote for themselves. After the working day was gradually shortened from the mid-nineteenth century, workers had some time for self-improvement and selfexpression. They wrote political tracts and autobiographies in large numbers.

Further Innovations

By now press was made of metals. Further in the 19th century many innovations were incorporated. By the mid-nineteenth century, Richard M. Hoe of New York had perfected the power-driven cylindrical press. This was capable of printing 8,000 sheets per hour. This was particularly useful for printing newspapers. In the late nineteenth century, the offset press was developed which could print up to six colors at a time.
By the 20th century electrically operated presses accelerated printing operations. Other innovations include improved methods of feeding paper, quality of plates became better, automatic paper reels and photoelectric controls of the color register were introduced. Thus the quality of the printed text improved greatly.

New Strategies to sell books
- Many periodicals serialized important novels in the nineteenth century. This gave birth to a particular way of writing novels.
- In the 1920s in England, popular works were sold in cheap series, called the Shilling Series.
- The dust cover or book jacket is a twentieth century innovation.
- Cheap paperback editions were brought to counter the effect of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

5.6 INDIA AND THE WORLD OF PRINT

Manuscripts Before the Age of Print In India there always was a rich tradition of handwritten manuscripts – in Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, and other languages. Manuscripts were copied on palm leaves or on handmade paper. Pages were often beautifully illustrated. They were pressed between wooden covers or sewn together to ensure preservation.
Manuscripts, however, were highly expensive and fragile and not widely used. They had to be handled carefully, and they could not be read easily. So in the pre-colonial Bengal primary school students very often did not read texts. They only learnt to write. Teachers dictated portions of texts from memory and students wrote them down. Many thus became literate without ever actually reading any kinds of texts.

Print Comes to India

- The Portuguese missionaries were the first to bring printing press to Goa in the midsixteenth century. The first books were printed in Konkani language. By 1674, about 50 books had been printed in Konkani and Kanara Languages. Catholic priests printed the first Tamil book in 1579 at Cochin. They printed the first Malayalam book in 1713.
- Publishing in the English language began later. From 1780, James Augustus Hickey began to edit the weekly magazine Bengal Gazette. It however, closed down within two years because of controversial reporting. Governor General Warren Hastings persecuted Hickey. Warren Hastings encouraged the publication of officially sanctioned newspapers to protect the image of the colonial government.
- The first Indian newspaper was the weekly Bengal Gazette which was brought out by Gangadhar Bhattacharya in 1816. He also published many other books.

5.7 RELIGIOUS REFORM AND PUBLIC DEBATES

Print culture helped in initiating new debate on religious, social and political issues in India. Many existing religious practices were criticized.

- Rammohun Roy published Sambad Kaumudi from 1821 to criticize the orthodox views in the Hinduism such as widow immolation, monotheism, Brahmanical priesthood and idolatry. The Hindu orthodoxy commissioned the Samachar Chandrika to counter his opinions. In 1822, publication of two Persian newspapers began, viz. Jam-i-Jahan Nama and Shamsul Akhbar. Bombay Samachar; a Gujarati newspaper appeared in the same year.

- With the collapse of Muslim dynasties, the Ulama became anxious. They feared that colonial rulers would encourage conversion and change the Muslim personal laws. To counter this, they began to publish lithographic prints which contained Persian and Urdu translations of holy scriptures. They also published religious newspapers and tracts. The Deoband Seminary was founded in 1867. It published thousands upon thousands of fatwas about proper conduct in the life of Muslims.

- Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas was printed from Calcutta in 1810. From the 1880s, the Naval Kishore Press at Lucknow and the Shri Venkateshwar Press in Bombay published many religious texts in vernaculars. With economical lithographic editions helped in bringing the religious texts within reach of the common masses.

- It also helped in shaping the new political debate. It connected the people from different parts in developing ‘pan-India’ identity.

5.8 NEW FORMS OF PUBLICATION

- Novels : More and more people now wanted to read reflections of their life experiences. The novel, a literary form developed in Europe got modified to Indian form and style. For readers, it opened up new worlds of experience, and gave a vivid sense of the diversity of human lives. Other new literary forms included – lyrics, short stories, essays about social and political matters.

- Visual culture began taking shape by the end of 19th century. Now visual images could be easily reproduced in multiple copies. Painters like Raja Ravi Varma produced images for mass circulation. Cheap prints and calendars, could be bought even by the poor. These prints began shaping popular ideas about modernity and tradition, religion, politics, society and culture.

- Caricatures and cartoons began to be published by 1870 in journals and newspapers. They commented on social and political issues. Some of them ridiculed the educated Indians’ fascination with Western tastes and clothes, while others expressed the fear of social change. There were imperial caricatures mocking nationalists, as well as nationalist cartoons criticizing imperial rule.

Women and Print

- Many writers wrote about the lives and feelings of women. Due to this, readership among middle-class women increased substantially. There were many liberal husbands and fathers who stressed on women’s education. They began going to school or were educated at home. This was the time, when many women writers also began to express their views through their writings. They explained why women should be educated. They also carried a syllabus and attached suitable reading matter which could be used for home-based schooling.
- However, conservative Hindus and Muslims were still against women’s education. They thought that a girl’s mind would be polluted by education. People wanted their daughters to read religious texts but did not want them to read anything else.
- While Urdu, Tamil, Bengali and Marathi print culture had developed early, Hindi printing began seriously only from the 1870s.
- Rashsundari Devi, wrote the first full length autobiography Amar Jiban in 1876.
- In the 1880s, in present-day Maharashtra,Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai wrote with passionate anger about the miserable lives of upper-caste Hindu women, especially widows.
- Journalists discussed important issues like educating women and widow remarriage.

Print and the Poor People

Very cheap small books were brought to markets in nineteenth-century Madras, and sold at crossroads, allowing poor people travelling to markets, to buy them.
- Public libraries were set up in cities and towns in the early 20th century. It was a matter of prestige for the rich to set up libraries.
- From the late 19th century, 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).
- In the twentieth century, B.R. Ambedkar in Maharashtra and E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker in Madras, better known as Periyar, wrote powerfully on caste and their writings were read by people all over India.
- Many popular journals criticized ancient scriptures and talked about a new and just future. Kashibaba, a Kanpur millworker, wrote and published Chhote Aur Bade Ka Sawal in 1938 to show the links between caste and class exploitation.
- By the 1930s, Bangalore cotton millworkers set up libraries to educate themselves, following the example of Bombay workers. These were sponsored by social reformers who tried to restrict excessive drinking among them and to propagate the message of nationalism.

5.9 PRINT AND CENSORSHIP

- Before 1798, the colonial rulers were not too concerned with censorship. Initially, the control measures were directed against Englishmen in India who were critical of Company misrule.
- After the revolt of 1857, the British attitude to freedom of the press changed. The Vernacular Press Act was passed in 1878. The Act provided the government with extensive rights to censor reports and editorials in the vernacular press. In case of a seditious report, the newspaper was warned. If the warning was ignored, the press was liable to be seized and the printing machinery confiscated.
- However, despite the repressive measures nationalist newspapers flourished.

Important Years
1822 – Persian Newspapers Jam-i-Jahan Nama and Shamsul Akbar, published
1843 – Steam powered rotatory printing invented by Richard Hoe
1878 – Vernacular Press Act passed
1880s – Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai wrote about miserable lives of upper caste Hindu women
1926 – Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossein condemns men for preventing women from studying

Important Words and Terms
Calligraphy : The art of beautiful and stylized writing
Edo : Old name of Tokyo
Kitagawa Utamaro : Developed the art form called ukiyo (pictures of the floating world)
Vellum : A parchment made from skin of animals
Platen : A board that is pressed onto the back of the paper to get an impression
Compositor : Person who composes the text for printing
Galley : Metal frame in which types are laid
Ballard : A folk tale of historical account usually in songs
Taverns : Places where people gathered to drink alcoholic drinks and to meet friends
Protestant Reform : 16th century movement to reform the Catholic church
Inquisition : A Roman catholic court to punish heretics
Heretical : Beliefs that do not follow accepted teachings of the church
Satiety : Being fulfilled; more than being satisfied
Seditious : Action, speech, etc., that is seen as against the ruling government
Denominations : A subgroup within a religion
Chapbook : Economical pocket sized books
Despotism : A system of government which exercises absolute power
Ulama : Scholars of Islam
Fatwa : A pronouncement of Islamic law

Objective Questions

Question : Explain any three features of handwritten manuscripts before the age of print in India?
Answer :  They were copied on palm leaves or on handmade papers.
2. Pages were beautifully illustrated.
3. They were pressed between wooden covers or sewn together to ensure preservation.
4. Manuscripts were available in vernacular languages.
5. Highly expensive & fragile.
6. They could not be read easily as script was written in different styles.
7. They were not widely used in everyday life. 

Question : Explain any three features of handwritten manuscripts before the age of print in India.
Answer : The three features of the handwritten manuscripts before the age of print in India are:
a. In India, there is rich and old tradition of handwritten manuscripts in different languages which were copied on palm leaves or on handmade papers.
b. These manuscripts were highly expensive, fragile and needed careful handling.
c. These were preserved by pressing between the wooden covers or sewn together.
d. Reading the manuscripts was not easy as they were written in different styles which limits its use.

Question : Why couldn’t the production of hand written manuscripts satisfy the ever increasing demand for books? Give any three reasons.
Answer : The production of handwritten manuscripts could not satisfy the ever increasing demand for books due to the following reasons:
a. In India, there is rich and old tradition of handwritten manuscripts in different languages which were copied on palm leaves or on handmade papers.
b. These manuscripts were highly expensive and fragile.
c. They needed careful handling.

Question : Explain any three factors responsible for the invention of new printing techniques.
Answer : The three factors responsible for the invention of new printing techniques were:
a. The handwritten manuscripts production was not sufficient to meet the demand.
b. These manuscripts were highly expensive, fragile and needed careful handling.
c. It was expensive and time consuming to copy the handwritten manuscripts. 

Question : Why did the woodblock method become popular in Europe?
Answer :  1.Production of handwritten manuscripts could not meet the ever increasing demand for books.
2. Copying was an expensive, laborious and time consuming business.
3. The manuscripts were fragile, awkward to handle and could not be carried around or read easily.
4. By the early 15th century, woodblocks started being widely used in Europe to print textiles, playing cards and religious pictures with simple, brief texts. 

Question : What was the role of new ‘visual image’ culture in printing in India?
Answer : 1. In the end of 19th century a new visual culture had started.
2. With the increasing number of printing presses visual images could be easily reproduced in multiple copies.
3. Painters like ‘Raja Ravi Verma’ produced images for mass circulation. Cheap prints and calendars were brought even by the poor to decorate the walls of their houses. 

Question : “Print popularized the ideas of the idea of the enlightenment thinkers.” Explain.
Answer : 1. Collectively the writings of thinkers provided a critical commentary on tradition, superstition and despotism.
2. Scholars and thinkers argued for the rule of reason rather than custom and demanded that everything to be judged through the application of reason and rationality.
3. They attacked the sacred authority of the church and the despotic power of the state thus eroding the legitimacy of a social order based on tradition.
4. The writing of Voltaire and Rousseau were read widely and those who read world through new eyes, eyes that were questioning critical and rational.

Long Answers Type Questions

Question : How print revolution led to the development of reading mania in Europe.
Answer : As literacy and schools spread in European countries there was a virtual reading mania.
1. A new forms of popular literature appeared to target new readers
2. There were ritual calendars along with ballads and folk tales.
3. In England penny chapbooks were carried by petty peddlers known as chapmen and sold for a penny, So that even poor could buy them.
4. In France these law priced books were called Bibliotheque Bleue as they were bound in cheap blue covers.
5. There were romances, histories, books of various sixes, serving developed to combine information on current affairs with entertainment.
6. Periodical pressed developed to combine information on current affairs with entertainment.
7. The idea of scientists and scholars had now become more accessible to the common people. 

Question :  How did oral culture enter print and how was the printed material transmitted orally? Explain
Answer : Oral culture entered print into the following ways –
1. Printers published popular ballads and folktales.
2. Books were profusely illustrated with pictures. Printed material was transmitted orally in the following ways.
I. These were sung at gathering in villages, taverns and in towns.
II. They were recited in public gathering. 

Question :  Explain the impact of print on Indian women.
Answer : 1. Writers started writing about the lives and features of women and this increased the number of women readers.
2. Women writers write their own autobiography. They highlighted the condition of women, their ignorance and how they forced to do hard domestic labour.
3. A large section of Hindu writing was devoted to the education of women.
4. In the early 20th century the journals written by women become very popular in which women’s education, widowhood, widow remarriage were discussed.
5. Many writers published how to teach women to be obedient wives. 

Question :  By the end of the 19th century a new visual cultural was taking shapes. Write any three features of this new visual cultural.
Answer : 1. Visual images could be easily reproduced in multiple copies.
2. Printers produced images for mass circulation cheap prints and calendars could be brought even by the poor.
3. By the 1870’s caricatures and cartoons were being published in journals and news papers.
4. Mass production of cost and visual images reduced the cost of production. So cheap prints and calendars were available in the market even for the poor to decorate the walls of their homes. 

Question :  ‘Many Histories have argued that print culture created the conditions within which the French Revolution occurred.’ Explain.
Answer : 1. The print popularized the ideas of the enlightened thinkers who attacked the authority of the church and the despotic power of the state.
2. The print created a new culture of dialogue and debate and the public become aware of reasoning. They recognized the need to question the existing ideas and beliefs.
3. The literature of 1780’s mocked the royalty and criticized their morality and the existing social order. This literature led to the growth of hostile sentiments against.

Question : How did print introduce debate and discussions? Explain any three points.
Answer : (i) The print culture spread the ideas of the great thinkers like Voltaire and Rousseau. They criticized tradition, custom, superstition, despotism and the authority of church. They wanted rule of reason, questioning and rationality
(ii) Debate and dialogue started due to the coming of the print culture which resulted in the re-evaluation of the values, norms and the institutions. This had brought the idea of social revolution.
(iii) The morality pf the royal powers were criticized and the social order was questioned. The cartoons and the caricatures revealed the sensual pleasures of the monarchs and the hardship of the common people. Hence, the people stood against the monarchy.
(iv). during the 19th century, people debated, interpreted and criticized the different religious beliefs like widow immolation, monotheism, Brahmanical priesthood and idolatry. Some people campaigned for the reform whereas others countered the arguments of the reformers.
(v).The printed materials and the newspapers spread the new ideas and also shaped the nature of debate which gave opportunity to the people to participate in the public debates

Question : “Printing press played a major role in shaping the Indian society of the 19thcentury.” Analyse the statement.
Answer : -(i) The Portuguese missionaries firstly brought the printing press to Goa in India in the mid-16th century.
(ii) During the 19th century, people debated, interpreted and criticized the different religious beliefs like widow immolation, monotheism, Brahmanical priesthood and idolatry. Some people campaigned for the reform whereas others countered the arguments of the reformers.
(iii) The printed materials and the newspapers spread the new ideas and also shaped the nature of debate which gave opportunity to the people to participate in the public debates.
(iv) Women’s reading increased among the middle class because their lives and feeling began to be written and also the liberal husbands and fathers focused on their education.
(v) For the easy and affordable access of the printed books to even the poor people very cheap, small books were published and also the public libraries were set up

Question : What was the attitude of liberal and conservative Indians towards women’s reading? How did women like Kailash bhashini Debi respond to this in their writings?
Answer :Women’s reading increased among the middle class because their lives and feeling began to be written and also the liberal husbands and fathers focused on their education. The conservative Hindu families believed that the literate girl would be widowed. The conservative Muslim families thought that by reading Urdu romances their women would be corrupted. Kailash bhashini Debi from Bengal, wrote about the experiences of the women such as how they are imprisoned at home ignorance, forced work, unjust treatment at home and society etc.

Question : Explain with examples the role of print culture in the bringing of French Revolution.
Answer : The print culture spread the ideas of the great thinkers like Voltaire and Rousseau. They criticized tradition, custom, superstition, despotism and the authority of church. They wanted rule of reason, questioning and rationality. Debate and dialogue started due to the coming of the print culture which resulted in the re-evaluation of the values, norms and the institutions. This had brought the idea of social revolution. The moralities of the royal powers were criticized and the social order was questioned. The cartoons and the caricatures revealed the sensual pleasures of the monarchs and the hardship of the common people. Hence, the people stood against the monarchy.
It is not true to say that the print culture was the direct cause of the French revolution. The print culture spread the ideas but people were reading different kinds of literature in which people like Voltaire and Rousseau were also exposed. The people interpreted the things in their own way as they accepted some ideas and rejected others.

Question : How had the earliest printing technology developed in the world? Explain withexamples.
Answer :(i) In the beginning the system of hand printing was developed in China, Japan and Korea.
(ii)The wood block printing was developed in China. In this technology the books were printed by rubbing the paper against the surface of the woodblocks.
(iii) The volume of the print increased in China due to the increase in the number of candidates in the civil services exam through which the candidates were recruited in the huge bureaucratic system.
(iv) 17th century urbanization in China also diversified the use of print in China. The scholar officials, merchants, rich women, wives and courtesans started the use of print.
(v) The western printing techniques and mechanical presses reached the outpost of China and thus Shanghai became the hub of this new print culture

Question : “By the end of 19th century a new visual culture was taking shape.” Explain.
Answer :(i) Along with the printed material, visual images could also be published and reproduced easily in multiple copies.
(ii)Painters like Raja Ravi Verma used print culture to produce images for mass circulation. Wood improvers began to be employed in print houses for making woodblocks.
(iii) People good at funny sketching developed cartoons and caricatures commenting on social and political issues. Some openly criticized imperial rule, western tastes and clothes which attracted large masses.
(iv) Mass production of visual images reduced the cost of production. Cheap prints and calendars were available in market and even the poor could buy to decorate the walls of their homes.
(v) The new visual culture acquired distinctively Indian form and style, as artists began to depict scenes from Hindu religious mythology.

Question : How did a new reading public emerge with the printing press? Explain.
Answer :(i) With the advent of printing press, a new reading public emerged. The books became cheaper as printing technology reduced the cost of production.
(ii) As books flooded the market, readership increased and books now reached to larger number of people.
(iii) Access to books created a new reading culture. Earlier reading was restricted to the elite only—common people lived in world of word culture who heard sacred text read out to them or ballads recited or folk tales narrated.
(iv) Now a reading public came into being. But book could be read only by literate people, keeping this point of view, printer’s published popular ballads and folk tales with a lot of pictures, which could be read to illiterate public. These ballads and tales could then be sung or read out to those who could not read.
(v)Thus, printed material could be orally transmitted at gatherings and taverns. Reading public and hearing public thus got intermingled

Question : What was ‘reading mania’?
Answer : With the rapid spread of literacy and schools in the European countries, everybody became an avid reader and the printers produced books at a wider scale.

Question : How did the print media affect the women in India?
Answer : 1. Women held an important position in the history of India as prominent readers and writers.
2. The Penny magazines were particularly meant for women. These were manuals that educated women on proper decorum and housekeeping facilities.
3. When novels began to be written in the nineteenth century, women were seen as important readers.
4. Many Best-known novelists like Jane Austen, the Bronte Sisters and Mary Anne Evans (pen name George Eliot) started to define a new type of woman; as a person with strong will, manifesting the strength of personality and thinking capacities.

Question : How had the Imperial State in China been the major producer of printed material for a long time? Explain with examples.
Answer : From AD 594 onwards, books in China were printed by rubbing paper — also invented there — against the inked surface of woodblocks. The imperial state in China was, for a very long time, the major producer of printed material. 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. Reading increasingly became a leisure activity. Women, revolutionaries, poets and even merchants used print in everyday life.

Source/Case Based Questions

Read the following passage and answer the questions given below it:

From the early nineteenth century, as you know, there were intense debates around religious issues. Different groups confronted the changes happening within colonial society in different ways, and offered a variety of new interpretations of the beliefs of different religions. Some criticized existing practices and campaigned for reform, while others countered the arguments of reformers. These debates were carried out in public and in print. Printed tracts and newspapers not only spread the new ideas, but they shaped the nature of the debate. A wider public could now participate in these public discussions and express their views. New ideas emerged through these clashes of opinions.
Answer the following MCQs by choosing the most appropriate option:

Question : Following is not true about the 19th century religious issues in India:
(a) Differences between Hindu and Catholics were not having major issue.
(b) Hindu religion did not have any major internal issue.
(c) Some people wanted to have some changes in Hindu rituals.
(d) Both Hindu and Muslim religions were having their own internal issues.
Answer : B

Question : Which of the following was not the work of print?
(a) Spreading the liberal religious ideas.
(b) People started debate and discussion after different ideas reached to them through books.
(c) Print provided them a platform to express their view.
(d) Religious leaders successfully conveyed what was written in religious books.
Answer : D

Question : Who among the following is known for his efforts to remove Sati system from India?
(a) Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar
(b) Raja Ram Mohan Roy
(c) Mahatma Gandhi
(d) Jyotiba Phule
Answer : B

Question : Which of the following was/were main controversy within Hindu religion in 19th century?
(a) How to establish cordial relations with Muslims.
(b) Conversion of Hindus by missionaries.
(c) Widow immolation, monotheism, idolatry.
(d) How to establish supremacy of Hindu religion over the world.
Answer : C