This article spends a lot of time expressing that the Gutenberg printing press was better than Eastern printing presses. That's true. But why was the Gutenberg press better, given that there were eastern printing presses hundreds of years earlier?
I think a big part of the answer was that because of the difficulties in printing their languages, there was no big incentive to improve their printing presses. You couldn't look at it and say, "Oh, man, if I could just solve this problem, my fortune would be assured!" And so the technology languished.
And the result was, as the article demonstrates, a vast difference in literacy and knowledge storage/transfer in the West. And that's certainly not the only reason why the West diverged from the East, but it's a big factor.
This article spends a lot of time expressing that the Gutenberg printing press was better than Eastern printing presses. That's true. But why was the Gutenberg press better, given that there were eastern printing presses hundreds of years earlier?
I think a big part of the answer was that because of the difficulties in printing their languages, there was no big incentive to improve their printing presses. You couldn't look at it and say, "Oh, man, if I could just solve this problem, my fortune would be assured!" And so the technology languished.
And the result was, as the article demonstrates, a vast difference in literacy and knowledge storage/transfer in the West. And that's certainly not the only reason why the West diverged from the East, but it's a big factor.