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Importance of inventions
Importance of inventions
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Gutenberg’s Printing Press as a Turning point in Modern Society
A turning point entails the landmark moments and forces of change that make up modern history (Liulevicius, 2014). The most important turning point happened way back in 1400. They have helped the human race in their struggle for civilization. These turning points have become a reckoning force in areas that affect people across all parts of the globe. These areas include scientific development, social change, the ever growing wave of technology advancement and innovation, offsets to human intellectual capacity, military techniques for war and natural disasters and most importantly economic development in different economies.
One outstanding impact is the ability to bring not only remarkable changes in the world but also redefining human race’s perspective of the world. This is irrespective of the turning point that makes up modern history. They have provoked human beings to use each day as a compelling turning point of their lives. One outstanding characteristic with the human race is that they are able to invoke change and develop it more for purposes of better innovation and long-lasting transformations in every aspect of their lives (Eisenstein, 2012).
Notably, each turning point in modern history has its own share of impacts to the world. They have assisted human beings to break away from the traditions that despised innovations, stalled development and civilization. The era before modern history did not have room for revolutions; instead things were done with absolute authority and in a certain way. Any digression from the ways set by traditions was a downright taboo (Eisenstein, 2012). Contrastingly, modern society appreciates progression and revolution ...
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...the advent of printed texts. On the other hand, scientific revolution gained its fame through printed text. Were it not for printed text, Nicolas Copernicus would not have published his work on earth revolution back in 1543.
8. It is a basis for sense of unity in the modern community
Print revolution inspired language cohesion because to date people have been able to print texts in their vernacular language other than Latin (Eisenstein, 2012). Nowadays, people can read together through the language in printed texts such as newspapers and journals.
References
Eisenstein, E. (2012). The printing revolution in early modern Europe (1st ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thegreatcourses.com,. (2014). Turning Points in Modern History. Retrieved 13 May 2014, from http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=8032&ai=81229
history had taken a huge turn expanding our minds to see this era in a positive perspective. But
Books today are everywhere. We find them in many households, libraries and schools all around the globe. We find many different types of books; from stories to educational textbooks, we regard them today as sources of knowledge and amusement. But it wasn’t the case before 1455. That year, one of the greatest inventions in human history was revealed to the world; Gutenberg’s printing press. This press allowed printing in massive quantity, spreading books all around Europe and the rest of the world at a fast rate. The printing press had many positive consequences on society. At first, it standardized grammar and spelling, and then introduced the mass production of books. It finally inspired future printing technologies around the world.
"In the fall of 1999, Arts & Entertainment Television aired a three-hour series titled, “Biography of the Millennium." The show counted down from 100 the most influential people of the last 1000 years, and number one on the list was Johannes Gutenberg. This German craftsman revolutionized the world in the 1450s by inventing the printing the printing press"(Background Essay). The most important consequence of the printing press were it changes life of millions, we learn from it by reading books, magazines, novels and it spread because everyone started using it pretty quickly.
There are many cumulative events that have influenced Western Civilization reflective in today’s modern world, but the most impactful was the French Revolution. Western Civilization has many historic milestones building to the world as we know it, but none set such broad themes that are felt in our everyday life. Many of these themes have become so ingrained into the way we live that we can’t understand a world without them. For this reason, the effects of the French Revolution molded the westernized world more so than any other event. I consider the French Revolution the catalyst to how our world is shaped today. It’s ideas and events continue to echo through our lives century after century.
Turning points in history can mean a change in the way the things are done in the past, sometimes for the better, and other times for the worse. Two notable turning points in history were the Industrial Revolution and also World War I. These both had some political, social and cultural impacts.
Brooklyn College Department of History, The Shaping of The Modern World from the Enlightenment to the Present, Fifth Edition. New York: Pearson, 2010. 3-8.
The term, progress, is synonymous with phrases that denote moving forward, growth, and advancement. It seems unorthodox then that Ronald Wright asserts the world has fallen into a progress trap, a paradox to how progress is typically portrayed as it contradicts the conventional way life is viewed: as being a natural progression from the outdated and tried towards the new and improved. Wright posits that it is the world’s relentless creation of innovative methods that ironically contributes to the progress trap rather than to progress itself, the intended objective. Wright’s coinage of the term “progress trap” refers to the phenomenon of innovations that create new complications that are typically left without resolve which exacerbate current conditions; unwittingly then, matters would have been much better if the innovation had never been implemented. In his book, “A Short History of Progress,” he alludes to history by citing examples of past civilizations that collapsed after prospering, and ones that had longevity because they avoided the perilous progress trap. Wright recommends that societies of today should use indispensable resources, such as history, to learn and apply the reasons as to why certain societies succeeded, while also avoiding falling into the pitfalls of those that failed, the ones that experienced the progress trap. This can easily be interrelated with Godrej’s concept of “the overheated engine of human progress,” since humans for centuries have been risking environmental degradation for progress through ceaseless industrialization and manufacturing. This exchange is doomed to prevent improved progress and will lead to society’s inevitable decline since it is unquestionable that in the unforeseeable future, cl...
Change, without a doubt, is ongoing constantly on a Global scale throughout Society. The great need for and the urgency of coming to understand this phenomenon is becoming increasingly obvious. Religion and philosophy have, since the dawn of civilization, sought to direct the Change in a way that would be beneficial to mankind as a whole. They have failed to make any significant change in the way Society is progressing.
“In the middle ages, Europe knew less about the earth than did some of the ancients, for the commercial decline of Rome brought about the contraction of geographical knowledge.” [Pohl 6]. During this time period, men began to disregard authority and learned to rely directly on their own investigations. This is the seed that brought about men like Columbus and Vespucci. The period of the Renaissance is the fertile ground that brought about changes in the world of inquiry and scientific achievement in Europe. “This new spirit of inquiry received its chief impetus from the invention of the printing press whose importance outweighed even the greatest political event of the time.”[Pohl 9]. Printing led to the overthrow of authority and allowed the men of the period to come into immediate contact with each ...
All throughout history, we see this dichotomy between tradition and modernity. On one hand, we have tradition, the force living perpetually in the past and refusing to change. On the other hand, modernity leaves tradition behind in favor of progress. These two concepts, much like oil and water, dare to divide but coexist as a debatable founding solution. Not only are the themes Western ideas, but they have been present and are found in literature all around the world, from China to Africa.
An example Wright gives in his book A Short History of Progress is the advancement of weaponry. He writes, “The club is better than the fist, the arrow better than the club, the bullet better than the arrow.” (2004) This example portrays that humanity has indeed made advancements in the technology of weaponry, but our instincts and how the developments come to be used creates a bigger problem than the one initially fixed. With the conclusion of the 20th century humanity saw the deadliest century with the blood soaking the hands of other humans. Advancement in weaponry has transformed humankind into a scary deadly creature. Humanity has been trapped in the idea of progress. Furthermore, it is the instincts that govern the humans the continue the course of spirally onward rather than improving and progressing.
Most famously recognized as a time of great technological innovation, the Industrial Revolution gave birth too two of the most transforming technologies, which came to spur the revolution on; cotton spinning and steam power. The two technologies are closely linked, the improved Steam Engine, invented by James Watt and patented in 1755, was originally used ...
The revolution brought about many radical changes and ideas that helped to strengthen it and the scientists that helped to bring it about became significant persons in history. "The emergence of a scientific community is one of the distinguishing marks of the Scientific Revolution."2 It was this form of community that gave a foundation for open thinking and observing throughout the sixteenth century and through twenty-first century. It was the first revolution that had more of a dedication to the ongoing process of science than of a goal to achieve scientific knowledge.3
...pted by people of the Late Middle Ages. More importantly, it brought out the idea that the Bible could not be interpreted for science, instead, people were to experiment or observe for themselves. The strongly supported heliocentric theory no refuted the favorable idea of humanity being in the center. The Scientific Revolution revealed the fact that the sun was in the universe, at the same time, it encouraged people to become innovators, thinkers, and experimenters instead of being dependent on theology. The Scientific Revolution was a big step forward for humanity. It showed that everyone was capable of thinking logically. In our society today, people can freely debate, read, and discover for themselves. Without the Scientific Revolution, the modernization of science may have been delayed, and our present ideas of the universe and humanity may have been different.
As the title of this paper states, “How our World is Changing” our world is constantly changing. Our world changes everyday without most of us ever seeing or noticing any changes, but as we look back in history we can see some tremendous changes. As history is studied these changes become apparent and truly jump out and become real.