Paradigms Lost:
The life and deaths of the printed word
Four times in Western history – the 1400s, early 1800, the 1880a, the mid-twentieth century – inventions kept coming that made it simpler and cheaper to produce and disseminate printed communication. Each time, what had been guarded knowledge reached more and more people. Rare and often disorienting, information ultimately stirred the political waters, advanced science, altered trade and finance, spurred mass migrations and spilled much blood. Powerful new governments and businesses replaced those of the past, creating shifts in politics, wealth and religion.
And then the costs of distributing knowledge fell a fifth time, far, fast and nearly free. Tectonic shifts followed again.
Four times in western history: in the 1400s, the early 1800s, the 1880s, and again in the mid-20th century, we learned to duplicate and disseminate the printed word more cheaply. And each time strange events followed.
For with each of these changes in the gritty production of glamorous content, expensive and secret bodies of knowledge abruptly became cheap and easy to spread. Once-rare and sometimes disorienting impressions rained down on once-sheltered folks. New and otherwise inexpert hands mixed them into whole new breeds of information, myth, logic, and viewpoints. There were fantastic scientific advances, mass migrations, bold social experiments, financial upheavals, and much bloodshed. In the harrowing decades that followed, powerful new kinds of governments, businesses, and groups came to elbow aside old ones. In all of these periods, there were great, creaking shifts in politics, wealth, religions, and even the way we learn, think, and see. And in the last decade, the costs of producing and distributing printed knowledge have fallen a fifth time, far and fast and almost to free.
Paradigms Lost traces the history of the accidents, inventions, forces, eccentrics, and geniuses who accelerated information in the past, examines what happened each time they succeeded, and provides some background for what, if the past is any guide, may be coming.
by William Sonn
Page Count: 398
Trim Size: 7-1/4 x 9
Publish Date: February 28, 2006
Imprint: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 9780810852624
Genre: History
History / Reference, Language Arts & Disciplines / Library & Information Science / General
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