Month: April 2012

The word ‘book’ comes from the German ‘buch‘ meaning simply an item with words fixed on it. It shares the word for ‘beech’ tree because healthy beech bark is remarkably smooth and light gray, whereas marks carved into the living bark of beech trees would first turn black and then grow with the bark, preserving carved words “forever.”

Actual books were first made by monks, who dedicated their lives to collecting and preserving the knowledge of the world. These books were made by hand, often taking years as pages were meticulously arranged and often decorated. The finished books were protected by the monks, and available for reading by a select few clergy, for literacy was necessary only for religion and the government. Rich folks hired people to read for them. Beyond the monks’ libraries and government archives, knowledge transfer was strictly oral.

Those who controlled books controlled power (religion and government). The extraordinary cost (in labor and time) of creating a single book meant that only the wealthy could afford to make them and keep them.

Then some clever people (first in China, then in Germany) figured out an easier way to reproduce words, and books, using moveable type, and suddenly books were cheap and it was worth the time and trouble to become literate because books were popping up all over. It’s no coincidence that the release and consumption of ideas using printing presses (Guttenberg Bible published in 1455) came in the early states of the “Renaissance” cultural revolutions across Europe.
Continue reading “In The Beginning There Was The Word” →