About Book : NeoGutenberg

7/27/2019 About Book : NeoGutenberg

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Book TitleNeo Gutenberg

Neo Gutenberg is our tribute to great Gutenberg through contemporary lens

Introduction

This is actually the story of mankind in time. Of man's hunger for knowledge. How man gathered, organized and harnessed

information to grow and evolve. The journey from stone tablets to phone tablets has been a fascinating one, a heroic adventure in

time, with its own twists, turns and character. When one looks at man's travails through time, he does appear to be a truculent

creature, with a consistent record of having waged a war just about every year, over a span of at least three thousand years

Communication has come a long way since we howled like animals or scratched cave walls to express ourselves ! It took an ice age to

reach a stage wherein we could imprint our expression into clay tablets and further thousands of years before we could evolve

modern phonetics. However it was only after the evolution of phonetics that our intellectual evolution expanded at a faster pace

But the limitations faced in physical writings and literature duplication remained an impediment to the growth and fair distribution

of knowledge. This would begin to change with the invention of Chinese wooden block and later movable type printing which would

accelerate the spread of literature.

However the real change would occur miles across in Germany where Johannes Gutenberg through his mastery in printing would

make Bible easily available for masses. This innovation in printing would play a decisive role in ending the dark ages and lead Europe

towards Renaissance. In the last six hundred years since the occurrence of Renaissance our civilization experienced measurable andfaster pace of change compared to the previous generations. This isnt a natural phenomenon but an outcome in spread of

communication through various inventions that followed since renaissance. The evolution in communication technology gave birth

to Renaissance and impetus to civil liberty in Britan, France and later America but it also led to the downfall of established civilization

elsewhere, like India, China & Americas. If this progress gave us heroes like Benjamin Franklin who enriched the world with his

inventions and stand on humanism, it also took a lot away from humanity in the form of Nazi Propaganda expert- Joseph Goebbels

Hence the world gained and suffered equally since its Darwinian evolution and many critics may state that this has been a materia

progress sans wisdom. To which we wouldnt disagree, as majority of the planet still lives a wretched life consumed in poverty

hunger and under totalitarian rule.

However for a few fortunate like us who have experienced the best in technology, civil progress must to work towards building a

fair and free world. Unlike earlier this would no longer be a missionary or ideological route taken by church and communist alike,

this could be done by a few emails or a tweet ! As since the advent of digital age and globalization the world as we know has shrunkthough it has its own inconsistencies. We the motley netizens can state that digital revolution did for us what globalization did for

political leaders and tycoons. Though globalisation is a recent phenomenon, digital age came in three waves, the first came with the

advent of radio, home telephony & television, second with personal computers, internet, emails, blogs and the third with the rise of

social media. The rise of Obama to presidency, the fall of despots in Arab spring and the rise of countless such mutinies across the

planet against an unfair order have proven the worth of social media. All these factors are changing the world for the better and by

our observation these changes are equivalent to the occurrences of first renaissance. Individuals like Mark Zuckerberg, Brin -Page

duo, Jimmy Wales & Jeff Bezos today have the same influence and wealth compared to the likes of Henry Ford, Carnegie or Pulitzer

did during Industrial age. Though at present we may not have anyone as tall as Thomas Paine, John Locke or Voltaire but we have

millions of their copies teaming up in bits and bytes across the planet striving to make their voice heard! We have followed a Time

Line module, following which the content of the book proceeds. This provides clarity to new readers most of whom may be young

students or new readers unaware of the depths of stories within. The book aims to provide layered , interest information & analysisin simple object form. According to us advancement and simplification in communication technology is directly proportional to the

creation of free and fair society. Hence we shall keep on witnessing the rise netizens in the fight against tyranny who will ultimately

lead to a better connected and just planet. Our book is a tribute to history, humanist, inventors, and Neo Gutenberg s .


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Synopsys

Mammals predate mankind by millions of years and hence it is understandable that they were the first organism to engage invisible communication and it can be scientifically assumed that mankind learned primary communication through pet calls

The humankind footprint despite being the least on planet developed on a pace unlike any other species. Evolving from theprimitive pet cries, mankind gradually develops the understanding of gestures and expressive body language. After centuries

of using the animal cries and sign as a mode of communication, the primitive man felt the need to record whatever it saw andstarted stroking on walls with the help of easily available stones, charcoal etc. Later the primitive man drew or replicated

things around him on cave and rock structures.It took about 20,000 years for Homo sapiens to move from the first cave

paintings to the first petro glyphs, which are dated to around 10,000BC. The Homo sapiens till this time were just replicating

what they saw, but with the advent of pictographs they started relating symbols with objects and then they developedideograms which were symbols representation ideas leading to the cuneiform scripts which were an advancement of theideograms. The cuneiform writing system was in use for more than 35 centuries, through several stages of evolution, from the

34th century BC down to the 1st century AD. It was completely replaced by alphabetic writing with a parallel development ofdifferent language and phonetics in different places of the world, they started writing manuscripts on dry Palm leafs during

the 15th century BC or the Bronze Age. The palm leaves served as the paper of the ancient world in parts of Asia. And possibly

much earlier, they were used to record actual and mythical narratives in South Asia. During the Bronze Age the Egyptians too

developed an understanding the supernatural powers, myths, god, etc and developed their hieroglyphic scripts to decorate thewalls of their place of worship. During this era the Greeks invented the phonetics which comprised of the study of sounds of

human speech which helped tremendously helped in developing contemporary languages

The organized procedure of persevering scriptures and writings led to the setting up of libraries which were thus the first

steps towards granting written scriptures the right to be a part of civil institution like judiciary, administration, granariessecurities etc. The library offered a sanctum to teachers and readers to document and preserve scriptures. This played a vital

role in the evolution of communications and rendering the evolution of early intelligent civilization. The greatest of thingwhich accelerated development and growth of human communication was the invention of paper in China. With the

availability of processed paper the Chinese thought to move beyond physical writing to printing which led to further swiftness

availability & duplication of literature. The earliest form of printing was woodblock printing, with existing examples fromChina dating to before 220 A.D. This immovable type of printing press improvised to the movable type of printing which wasinvented in China around 1040 AD. This led to the most remarkable inventions in the history of humankind. Initiating the

beginning of the end of dark ages thousands of miles across in Europe In the 11th century the eastern civilization was far more advanced than the western civilization in many sense especially incommunication as they could print thus accelerating the availability of literature thus have better institutions, universities

and trading. It is to study this very ancient but evolved civilization Marco polo travelled to China to know more about the

opulent eastern nation. With his able return to Europe he not only brought glorious tales and stories about the rich civilizationbut also information about the communication tools China had, the movable clay types. Taking inspiration from the printingculture in China possibly from Polos chronicles and to get respite from the prevalent high cost of printing, Gutenberg from

Germany thought of creating a printing press which would make printing easy and cheap. The availability of bible amongst

masses led to landmark changes in the society thus initiating Renaissance which defines the present global world order

Beginning in Italy, and spreading to the rest of Europe by the 16th century, its influence was felt in literature, philosophy, artmusic, politics, science, religion, and other aspects of intellectual inquiry.

The advent of Renaissance changed the power structure in Europe forever and for good. The English civil war and theFrench revolution were one of the most notable victories of the common against aristocracy with both the movement being

fuelled by thinkers like John Locke and Voltaire respectively. In later period the spirit of Renaissance moved out of Europe

where American settlers revolted against British colonial rulers taking cue from the thoughts purported by thinkers likeThomas Paine. The American declaration of independence and its civil rights doctrine form the modern basis of democraticpillars of modern society. All these revolutions where equally fought with the might of pen as it was with swords which was a

notable contribution of communication tools not available prior to Gutenberg. But the rise of Europe soon led to the downfall

of other ancient/medieval civilization in other continents notably in Indian Subcontinent and Eastern Asia. The English
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_East_Asiahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_East_Asia


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empire started its colonial pursuits much later to other European counterparts but due to its supremacy in civil administrationand might in communication technologies like Telegraph, it became the empire where the Sun never set. In the colonial

pursuits of the British Empire, saw the rise of eastern renaissance in Bengal province which had a great impact on the Indianculture and in a way also initiated the beginning of the end of colonial rulers in India. Thus replicating what the occurrence o

the Europeans Renaissance where the commoners/weak took on the mighty with the availability of knowledge at theirdisposal. Though, this didn't usher the Re-emergence of eastern civilizations as the Industrial revolution stuck through in

Europe. The industrial revolution brought about a new phase in the history of mankind which since thousands of years was

dwelling on its agrarian society. As this revolution took place in Europe much of its benefits were also claimed by its colonia

powers that used the increased output from mechanized devices for progress and conquest. The mechanization helped asmuch as in the development of weaponry and infrastructure as it did in emergence of communication device. Its hence nosurprise that till the mid 1950s most of the communication device inventions and patents (telegraph, Phone, Radio

Television) happened in western civilization. Barring Japan, this improvised on the western model of growth and had its own

electronic renaissance. However as mankind has always done which is, to turn its greatest inventions for the worst opurposes. The glimpse of such occurrences were seen in the later part of Marats writing(French revolution) and later taking a

methodical approach in Nazi Germany and during cultural revolution(China).

With the turn of the Second World War, the rise of United States became evident and which had a crucial impact in the field of

communication. This was possible due to the research culture and availability of global migrant talent pool that came to its

shore. Though companies like IBM, Bell labs and Xerox had left their footprints, it was the advent of Apple and Microsoft whichbrought technology to home users. The advent of Internet, mobile telephony brought about a second renaissance which made

communication and availability of information easier/cheaper for the masses. Though Internet made new empires and

changed lifestyle, it was the acceptance of social media that brought a new meaning in the lives of the end users. Initiallylabeled as a novice tool its real impact became visible with the election of Barak Obama (2007) and later in the Middle Eastern

upheaval (2011) thus earning social media the respect it rightly deserved. The emergence of new communication inventionsalways have had a grand impact on our civilization and with passing of time, its impact has been quicker than ever before. In

near future, technology would become more intuitive and imbibed with our physical form making true much of what we have

seen or read in science fiction. Mankind has an insatiable appetite to learn from nature be it pet calls in pre historic times toradar & sonar technology in contemporary era. Only time can tell how our desire to find contemporaries in the universe shallever get full-filled as it has remained a very crucial part of human Psyche since Roswell in 1940s. However our greatest search

may not lie in the environment and nor in outer space but very much in our mind and conscience. Our perfect evolution wil

happen only when our sub conscious instantaneously connects with others in the sphere and Information is churned intoknowledge finally reaching the point of absolute wisdom. Its at this point that we shall revert back to the ancient wisdom

teachings of thinkers forming a synergy with the past and the contemporary.

Theme

We have followed a Time Line module through following which the content of the book proceeds. This provides clarity to

new readers most o who havent heard about these incidents before. The book aims to provide sophisticated information

& analysis is most basic form possible


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CONTENTS

I - Evolution of Language

1.1. Pet Calls and Sign Language

1.2 Cave Paintings and Rock Carvings

1.3 Pictographs and Ideograms

1.4 Cuniform Scripts and Palm leaves writings

II - Emergence of Knowledge2.1 Phonological Writing and Mathematics

2.2 Libraries and Universities

III Paper and Printing

3. 1 Invention of Paper

3. 2 Wooden Printing Press

IV - The Pioneers

4.1. Peter Abelard

4.2 Roger Bacon

4.3 Marco Polo

4.4 Gutenberg

V - The First Renaissance

5.1 The spread of print press in Europe

5. 2 The expansion of print press abroad

VI - The Impact of Printing Technology

6.1 Social impact of printing

6.2 Religion redefined

6. 3 Liberation of Europe

VII - The Aftermath and Civic Uprising7. 1The Changing Era

7.2 The English Civil War

7.3 The American War of Independence

7.4 The French Revolution

VIII - Rise of Enterprise, Empire and English

8. 1The Industrial Revolution

8.2 Development of Telegraph in the Global Order

8.3 Supersession of Empire over other Imperialist

8.4 Imperialism fuelled by Industrialism

8.5 The Eastern Renaissance

IX- Scientific Advancement: As a Catalyst of the New World Order

9.1 Camera

9.2 Braille & Audiometer

9.3 Radio

9.4 Telephone

9.5 Cinema

9.6 Television

9.7 Computing Age

9.8 Japanese Electronic Revolution


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X Wars & Propaganda

10.1 Sovietization of Culture

10.2 World Wars and Propaganda

10.3 Nazi Germany

10.4 Chinese Cultural Revolution

XI - Rise of New Empires and Innovators

11.1 Rise of USA and USSR11. 2 Satellite Age

11.3 Xerox

11.4 Open source The Alternative

11.5 Apple

11.6 Microsoft - The Window at your desk

XII - Advent of Information Age

12.1 Information Age

12.2 Mobile Phone

12.3 Internet and Email

12.4 Yahoo and Google

12.5 Rise of Ecommerce

12.6 Blogging

12. 7 Wikipedia

12.8 Project Gutenberg

12. 9 Social Media

12.10 Smart Mobility and Cloud Computing

12.11 Wikileaks

12.12 Role of Advertising

XIII- The Future13. 1 Universal Open Computing

13.2 Cyber Warfare

13. 3 Alien possibilities and Animal instinct

13.4 Information at the speed of thought

XIV- Conclusion

14.1 From Information to Knowledge Based Culture

14.2 From Gutenberg to Google


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Intended Readership

Considering the general nature of the book it will interest anyone who as read non fiction

books on history, technology and human civilization. This book may become a mandatory book

for communication and media students and we have received confirmation for the same from

colleges across Mumbai who have liked the book.

About Book : NeoGutenberg

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