Spread of Knowledge Man's World

Spread of Knowledge Man's world has changed as collective learning, experiences and discoveries take place and new information is shared among peoples. Three early events -- the invention of the printing press, the dissemination of maps, and the Gutenberg bible -- were profoundly instrumental in the spread of knowledge. The Printing Press, the Bible, and the Spread of Maps The printing press is said to have been invented in Europe around 1450, although some historians credit the Chinese with the invention of a press nearly four hundred years earlier (Gunaratne, 2001).

The Chinese reportedly used paper in the first century a.D. And disseminated a newspaper during the T'ang dynasty, approximately 700 a.D. The Koreans are thought to have used a press with moveable type fifty years before Gutenberg. For the purposes of this paper, it is not important to discuss the actual invention of the printing press, but the ramifications its invention brought about. The use of printing spread rapidly after its invention.

"Printing created the conditions under which a broad reading public was able to use tools that had previously been limited to a small, specialized elite" (Blair, 2010). Holz (2006) likens the advent of the Intenet to the invention of the printing press; it is a good analogy because, as one thinks of the impact of Internet, one can then imagine how revolutionary the printing press was regarded in medieval times.

Books were still expensive and rare, compared to modern times, and until the twentieth century, there were still great numbers of people in the world who were unable to read. However, over centuries, the gaps closed both in availability of books for the masses and literacy rates among people. As time progressed, there was less and less separation between a class of people who could read and who had access to books and an underclass who did not. The spread of knowledge through the written word became an equalizer.

Johnann Gutenberg used his new invention to print the Bible. Before the printing press, the Bible was a book intended only for scholars. It was not meant for the common man. Catholic monks painstakingly transcribed Biblical teachings, which were used by the Catholic Church. When more Bibles got into the hands of the people, they started asking questions and thus the Protestant Reformation movement was born. "The Reformation ended the unity imposed by medieval Christianity and, in the eyes of many historians, signaled the beginning of the modern era" (Theopedia, 2010).

By printing the Bible, Gutenberg made it possible for more people to have knowledge of its contents. With greater knowledge came questions and the desire for change. In much the same way, the increasingly widespread use of maps allowed humankind to share knowledge and, quite literally, expand its collective horizons. Wennerstrom (2007) noted that, before the fifteenth century, information on distant places could be found only in a few written travelogues. Europeans discovered how to mass produce maps, however, and forever changed the way people traveled.

As surveying techniques developed and now with the use of satellite imaging, anyone can gain information about any part of the world. Conclusion Today's writers often claim that there exists "information overload." It is agreed that there are seemingly infinite sources of information that people can access to gain knowledge on.