Question
Why did some people in eighteenth century Europe think that print culture would bring enlightenment and end despotism?
Solution
Print culture would bring enlightenment and end despotism:
(i)Newspapers and journals carried information about wars and trade, as well as news of developments in other places.
(ii)Similarly, the ideas of scientists and philosophers now became more accessible to the common people. Ancient and medieval scientific texts were compiled and published, and maps and scientific diagrams were widely printed.
(iii)When scientists like Isaac Newton began to publish their discoveries, they could influence a much wider circle of scientifically minded readers.
(iv)The writings of thinkers such as Thomas Paine, Voltaire and Jean Jacques Rousseau were also widely printed and read. Thus their ideas about science, reason and rationality found their way into popular literature.
(v)Louise-Sebastien Mercier, a novelist in eighteenth-century France had declared: ‘The printing press is the most powerful engine of progress and public opinion is the force that will sweep despotism away.’ In many of Mercier’s novels, the heroes were transformed by acts of reading. They devour books, are lost in the world books create, and become enlightened in the process.
(i)Newspapers and journals carried information about wars and trade, as well as news of developments in other places.
(ii)Similarly, the ideas of scientists and philosophers now became more accessible to the common people. Ancient and medieval scientific texts were compiled and published, and maps and scientific diagrams were widely printed.
(iii)When scientists like Isaac Newton began to publish their discoveries, they could influence a much wider circle of scientifically minded readers.
(iv)The writings of thinkers such as Thomas Paine, Voltaire and Jean Jacques Rousseau were also widely printed and read. Thus their ideas about science, reason and rationality found their way into popular literature.
(v)Louise-Sebastien Mercier, a novelist in eighteenth-century France had declared: ‘The printing press is the most powerful engine of progress and public opinion is the force that will sweep despotism away.’ In many of Mercier’s novels, the heroes were transformed by acts of reading. They devour books, are lost in the world books create, and become enlightened in the process.
