CBSE Class 10 Social Science HOTs Print culture and the Modern World

Question : Wooden or Metal frames in which types are laid and the text composed for printing was known as:
Answer : Galley 

Question : Who wrote "Chhote aur Bade ka Sawal"? When was it published?
Answer : Kashbaba, a Kanpur millworker in 1938.

Question : Name the first book printed by Gutenberg Press.
Answer : The Bible

Question : Who was Menocchio?
Answer : Menocchio was a miller of 16th century in Italy. He reinterpreted the message of the Bible and formulated a view of God and creation that enraged the Catholic Church.

Question : Why were women not educated in India in the early part of the nineteenth century? Give any two reasons.
Answer :  (i) This was because of the superstitions and myths that prevailed in the society.
(ii) Conservative Hindus believed that a literate girl would be widowed and Muslims feared that educated women would be corrupted by reading Urdu romances.  

Question : What led the colonial government to pass the Vernacular Press Act in 1879? How did it affect the vernacular newspaper? 
Answer : (i) Nationalists in India used print media to publish the evil affects of British rule and spread new ideas.
(ii) As Vernacular newspapers became assertively nationalist, the colonial government decided to take strong measures.
(iii) In 1878 the Vernacular Press Act was passed which provided the government with intensive rights to censor reports and editorials in the Vernacular press.
(iv) Despite repressive measures nationalist news papers grew in numbers in all parts of India. 

Question : What is manuscript? Mention any two limitations of it, during nineteenth century.
Answer :  (i) Manuscripts were copies on palm leaves or on handmade paper.
(ii) Pages were beautifully illustrated.
(ii) Manuscripts were highly expensive but fragile.
(iii) They were in various vernacular languages.
(iv) They could not be read easily as the script was written in different styles. 

Question : 'With the printing press a new public emerged in Europe'. Justify the statement. 
Answer :  (i) Wider sections of people started having an easy access to books.
(ii) Books were printed in large numbers with greater ease.
(iii) The prices fell and they became affordable for large public.
(iv) The hearing public and reading public became intermingled. 

Question : For what purpose did Ram Chaddha, publish ‘Istri Dharm Vichar’?
Answer :  (i) In Punjab, a similar folk literature about discussing women issues was widely printed from the early 20th century.
(ii) Ram Chaddha published the fast selling ‘Istri Dharma Vichar’ to teach women how to be obedient wives. 

Question : What are the factors that lead to the reading mania in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe?
Answer : As literacy spread to peasants and artisans, the literacy rate rose as high as 60 to 80 per cent in some parts of Europe.
(i) People wanted to read books and the printers produced books in ever increasing numbers.
(ii) By mid-eighteenth century, there was a common belief that books were a means of spreading progress and enlightenment.
(iii) Others felt that books could change the world, liberate society from despotism and tyranny and would bring an era when reason and intellect would rule.
(iv) Convinced by the power of print, there was virtual reading mania among Europeans of 18th century.  

Question : Why did the Roman Catholic Church begin to keep an index of prohibited books from the mid 16th century?
Answer : (i) Printed religious literature stimulated a variety of interpretations of faith, even among the little educated working class in the early 16th century.
(ii) Menocchio, an Italian miller, reinterpreted the Bible in a way that enraged the Roman Catholic Church.
(iii) Such instances worried the Church about people reading the various interpretations of the religion and questioning the Church.
(iv) Hence, it imposed severe controls over publishers and booksellers and began maintaining an index of prohibited books. 

Question : How had the earliest printing technology developed in the world? Explain with example.
Answer :  (i) The earliest kind of print technology was developed in China, Japan and Korea. In China woodblocks were used for hand printing.
(ii) Upto the 6th century print was used only by the scholar officials but later it became common.
(iii) The Buddhist missionaries introduced hand printing technology from China to Japan.
(iv) It was Marco Polo, a great explorer, who brought printing knowledge of woodblock from China to Italy.

Question : How did new forms of popular literature appear in print targeting new audience in the 18th century? Explain with examples. 
Answer :  (i) There were almanacs along with ballads and folktales. In England, chapbooks were carried by petty pedlars known as chapman and sold for a penny.
(ii) Biliotheque Bleue were low-priced books sold in France.
(iii) There were the romances printed on four to six pages and the more substantial 'Histories' which were stories of the past. 

Question : "It is difficult to imagine a world without printed matter". Justify the statement with suitable arguments.
Answer :   Yes, it is really very difficult to imagine a world without printed matter because:
(i) Everywhere in our surroundings, we find evidence of print, i.e. in books, journals, newspapers, prints of famous paintings, etc.
(ii) We see printed materials in everyday things like theatre programs, official circulars, calendars, diaries, advertisements, cinema posters, government notifications, etc.
(iii) We read printed literature, see printed images, follow the news through different newspapers and track public debates that appear in print. We take this world as world of print and often forget that there was a time before the printing technology came. 

Question : Why were manuscripts not widely used in everyday life? Give three reasons.
Answer :  1. Manuscripts were documents or books written by hand. 2. They were not used widely because :
(i) They could not satisfy the ever increasing demand for books.
(ii) They were expensive as copying was an expensive, laborious and time consuming work.
(iii) Manuscripts were fragile, awkward to handle and could not be carried around or read easily.
(iv) Their circulation was limited. 

Question : Explain the different stages of development of printing technology in China. 
Answer :  (i) From 594 A.D. the books were printed in China by pressing paper against the inked surface of woodblocks.
(ii) The imperial court got many textbooks printed for the Civil Services Examination and remained the target user of printed books in China.
(iii) By the 17th century urban culture developed in China and it added merchants, wives of rich men, scholars and officials who not only started reading printed books but also began to write their autobiographies.
(iv) In the late 19th century, the western powers established mechanical printing press in Shanghai and shifted to mechanical printing. 

Question : Explain how print culture assisted the growth of Nationalism in India.
Answer :  Print culture, i.e., press and literature played a crucial role in growth and spread of nationalism in India.
(i) In the 19th century, huge quantity of national literature was created. It inspired people to throw away the British yoke.
(ii) India Mirror, Bombay Samachar, The Hindu, Kesari-Indian newspapers exerted deep imprint on the minds of people.
(iii) Nationalist press reported on colonial misrule and encouraged nationalist activities. For example, when Punjab revolutionaries were deported in 1907, Balgangadhar Tilak wrote with great sympathy about them.
(iv) Gandhi ji spread his ideas of Swadeshi in a powerful way through newspapers. Many Vernacular newspapers came up in India to spread nationalism. 

Question : Describe any five strategies developed by the printers and publishers in the 19th century to sell their products.
Answer :  Some of the important strategies adopted by the printers and publishers to sell books were :
(i) They brought out serialized novels. The first serialized novel was shilling series. It was a cheap series that was very popular and was sold in England in 1920's.
(ii) The advertisers put up advertisements at strategic public locations such as building, railway station, etc. to attract buyers and improve sales.
(iii) The dust cover or the book jacket is the 20th century innovation.
(iv) One of the great innovation was the introduction of cheap paper back books in the 1930's. During the Great Depression this kept the steady sale of books. Cheap paper back editions were brought to counter the effect of the Great Depression in the 1930's.
(v) The shilling series was also considered an important innovation at this time.

Long Questions for Class 10 Social Science Print Culture and the Modern World

Question : How did print culture develop in Europe? Explain.
Answer :  The print culture developed in Europe in small steps. In the eleventh century, Chinese paper reached Europe via the silk route. Paper made possible the production of manuscripts, carefully written by scribes. In 1295, Marco Polo, the great explorer, returned to Italy after many years of exploration in China. Marco Polo brought Chinese technology of woodblock printing back with him. Now Italians began producing books with woodblocks, and soon the technology spread to other parts of Europe. With the growing demand for books, woodblock printing gradually became more and more popular. By the early fifteenth century, woodblocks were being widely used in Europe to print textiles, playing cards, and religious pictures with simple, brief texts. There was clearly a great need for even quicker and cheaper reproduction of texts. The breakthrough occurred at Strasbourg, Germany, where Johann Gutenberg developed the first-known printing press in the 1430s. 

Question : How did print help in empowering womenfolk?
Answer : Printing helped in empowering womenfolk greatly. Lives and feelings of women were written with intensity in the books. This increased the number of women who took to reading. Liberal husbands and fathers started educating their womenfolk at home and some sent them to schools. Many journals began carrying writings by women and explained why women should be educated. They also carried a syllabus and attached suitable reading matter which could be used for homebased schooling. Social reforms and novels created a great interest in women’s lives and emotions. Women’s opinions and views began to be considered and respected. Stories were written about how women were imprisoned at home, kept in ignorance, forced to do hard domestic labor and treated unjustly by the very people they served. Stories about the miserable lives of upper-caste Hindu women, especially widows also appeared in print. These stories paved the way for the liberation of the suppressed Indian woman.

Question : Give any three reasons favouring shift from hand printing to mechanical printing in China.
Answer :  The principal reason for shifting from hand printing to mechanical printing in China were an increased demand and availability of the technology.
(a) From the earliest days China had a large bureaucratic system which recruited its personnel through civil service examinations. Textbooks for this examination were printed in vast numbers under the sponsorship of the imperial state. Sixteenth century onwards the number of examination candidates went up and that increased the volume of print.
(b) By the seventeenth century, as urban culture bloomed in China, the uses of print diversified. Merchants began to use print in their everyday life, as they collected trade information.
(c) Reading increasingly became a leisure activity for a large number of people including women. The new readership preferred fictional narratives, poetry, autobiographies, anthologies of literary masterpieces, and romantic plays. Many women began publishing their poetry and plays. (d) Western printing techniques and mechanical presses were imported in the late nineteenth century as Western powers established their outposts in China. Shanghai became the hub of the new print culture, catering to the Westernstyle schools. This led to a gradual shift from hand printing to mechanical printing.

Question : What were the chief characteristics of the earliest print culture in Japan? Explain any five. 
Answer : (i) Introduced by the Buddhist missionaries : The Buddhist missionaries from China introduced the hand printing technology into Japan around AD 768-770.
(ii) Old book : The oldest Japanese book, printed in AD 868, is the Buddhist Diamond Sutra, containing six sheets of text and woodcut illustrations.
(iii) Material: Playing cards, paper money and textile products were used for printing pictures.
(iv) Cheap books : In the medieval Japan, the works of poets and prose writers were regularly published, and books were cheap and abundant.
(v) Print in Edo (Tokyo) : In the late 18th century, in the flourishing urban circles at Edo (Tokyo), illustrated collections of paintings depicting an elegant urban culture, involving artists, courtesans and teahouse gatherings.

Question : Explain five effects of print revolution. 
Answer :  Impact of Print Revolution :
(i) New reading public emerged.
(ii) The hearing people became reading people.
(iii) Religious debates due to fear of prints led to distinctive interpretation of faith.
(iv) Printing transformed the lives of the people.
(v) It opened new ways of looking at things.
(vi) Print culture also affected the life of poor people and women in many ways. The print gave birth to new form of popular literature. Very small books were brought out. They were sold across roads. The poor people brought these books and read with great interest. Books were cheap so the the poor people could also afford them.
(vii) Women's reading increased enormously in middle class homes. Liberal husbands and fathers began educating their women folk at home and send them to schools. Women schools were also set up. 

Question : Explain briefly the initial efforts made by foreigners to introduce printing press in India.
Answer :  (i) The Portuguese missionaries first introduced printing press in India in the mid 16th century.
(ii) Jesuit priests learnt Konkani and printed several texts.
(iii) By 1674 about 50 books had been printed in the Konkani and Kannada language.
(iv) Catholic priest first published printed books in Tamil in Cochin and in 1713 first Malayalam book was printed.
(v) Dutch Protestant missionaries had printed nearly 32 text in Tamil which were later translated.
(vi) The English language press did not grow in India till quite late even though official of the East India Company began to import presses from late 17th century.
(vii) From 1780, James Augustus Hickey began to edit the Bengal Gazette, a weekly magazine; it was a private English enterprise and was free from colonial influence.
(viii) Hickey published a lot of advertisements including those that related to import and sale of slaves.
(ix) By the close of the 18th century, a number of newspaper and journals appeared in print. 

Question : Describe the impact of the print revolution in Europe during 15th and 16th century.
Answer :  Impact of the print revolution in Europe during the 15th and 16th century:
(i) Printing reduced the cost of books.
(ii) The time and labour required to produce each book came down, multiple copies could be produced with greater ease.
(iii) Books flooded the market, reaching out to an ever growing readership.
(iv) Publishers started publishing popular ballads folk tales with beautiful pictures and illustrations.
(v) Print created the possibility of wide circulation of ideas, and introduced a new world of debate and discussion.
(vi) Even those who disagreed with established authorities, could now print and circulate their ideas, e.g. Martin Luther was a German monk, priest, professor and church reformer. He challenged the Church to debate his ideas. This led to division within the Church and the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
(vii) Print and popular religious literature stimulated many distinctive individual interpretations of faith even among little-educated working people. 

Question : Explain with example how print culture catered to the requirement of children.
Answer :  (i) In Europe primary education became compulsory from the late nineteenth century, children became an important category of readers. Production of school textbooks became critical for the publishing industry. 
(ii) A children's press devoted to literature for children alone, was set up in France in 1857.
(iii) This press published new works as well as old fairy tales and folktales.
(iv) The Grimm brothers in Germany spent years in compiling traditional folk tales gathered from peasants. What they collected was edited before the stories were published in a collection in 1812.
(v) Anything that was considered unsuitable for children or would appear vulgar to the elites, was not included in the published version. Rural folk tales thus acquired a new form. In this way, print recorded old tales but also changed them. 

Question : Printing press played a major role in shaping the Indian society of the 19th century, support with examples.
Answer :  Printing press played a major role in shaping the Indian society:
(a) It made people aware about various social issues and problems. For example it created intense debate and controversy between social and religious reformers and the orthodox Hindus. The ideas of reformers reached the wider population of the common people through printed reading material. For example the “Sambad Kaumudi” carried the ideas of Raja Ram Mohan Roy. The Deoband Seminary founded in 1867, published thousands of fatwas telling the Muslim readers how to conduct themselves in their everyday lives. The print culture had a significant impact on the growth of nationalism in India.
(i) Inspite of passing a Vernacular Press Act, nationalist newspapers grew in numbers.
(ii) They reported on colonial misrule and encouraged nationalist actvities.
(iii) The British Government tried to put down the criticism but there were more protests.
(iv) Punjab revolutionaries were deported,’ Tilak wrote in Kesari.
(v) It led to his imprisonment in 1908 provoking large protest. 

Question : Describe any five uses of print culture in the 17th century China.
Answer :  (i) By the 17th century, as urban culture bloomed in China, the uses of print diversified.
(ii) Print was no longer used just by scholarofficials. (iii) Merchants used print in their everyday life, as they collected trade information.
(iv) The new readership preferred fictional narratives, poetry, autobiographies, anthologies of literary masterpieces and romantic plays.
(v) Rich women began to read and many women began publishing their poetry and plays.
(vi) Wives of scholar-officials published their works and courtsmen wrote about their lives. 

Question : ‘Print culture created the conditions within which the French Revolution occurred’. Give three suitable arguments to support this statement. 
Answer :  Many historians believe that print culture created the conditions within which French Revolution occurred. The arguments put forward are as follows :
(a) Print popularized the ideas of the Enlightenment thinkers. Their writings provided a critical commentary on tradition, superstition and despotism. They argued for the rule of reason rather than custom, and demanded that everything be judged through the application of reason and rationality. They attacked the sacred authority of the Church and the despotic power of the state, thus eroding the legitimacy of a social order based on tradition. The writings of Voltaire and Rousseau were read widely; and those who read these books saw the world through new eyes, eyes that were questioning, critical and rational.
(b) Print created a new culture of dialogue and debate. All values, norms and institutions were re-evaluated and discussed by the public that had become aware of the power of reason, and recognized the need to question existing ideas and beliefs. Within this public culture, new ideas of social revolution came into being.
(c) Large amount of literature was produced that mocked the royalty and criticized their morality. In the process, it raised questions about the existing social order. This literature circulated underground and led to the growth of hostile sentiments against the monarchy.