JAC Board Class 10th Social Science Important Questions History Chapter 5 Print Culture and the Modern World
Multiple Choice Questions
Question 1.
Where was the earliest print technology developed?
(a) France, China and India
(b) China, Japan and Korea
(c) China, Japan and Germany
(d) Germany, Korea and Vietnam
Answer:
(b) China, Japan and Korea
Question 2.
What is calligraphy?
(a) The art of making ceramics
(b) A style of music
(c) The art of pottery
(d) The art of beautiful and stylised writing
Answer:
(d) The art of beautiful and stylised writing
Question 3.
Which city became the hub of the new print culture, catering to the Western- style schools?
(a) Strasbourg
(b) Shanghai
(c) Goa
(d) Paris
Answer:
(b) Shanghai
Question 4.
In which year was the oldest Japanese book printed?
(a) 1517
(b) 1295
(c) ADr868
(d) AD 768
Answer:
(c) ADr868
Question 5.
Who brought the knowledge of woodblock printing with him to Italy from China?
(a) Marco Polo
(b) Gutenberg
(c) Voltaire
(d) Jane Austen
Answer:
(a) Marco Polo
Question 6.
What is vellum?
(a) The art of beautiful and stylised writing
(b) A historical account or folk tale in verse, usually sung or recited
(c) A parchment made from the skin of animals
(d) Metal frame in which the types are laid and the text compressed
Answer:
(c) A parchment made from the skin of animals
Question 7.
Who developed the first-known printing press in the 1430s?
(a) Johannes Gutenberg
(b) Marco Polo
(c) Martin Luther
(d) Warren Hastings
Answer:
(a) Johannes Gutenberg
Question 8.
What was the first book printed by Gutenberg?
(a) Diamond Sutra
(b) Samachar Chandrika
(c) Sambad Kaumudi
(d) The Bible
Answer:
(d) The Bible
Question 9.
When was the dust jacket or the book jacket innovated?
(a) Nineteenth century
(b) Twentieth century
(c) End of nineteenth century
(d) Seventeenth century
Answer:
(b) Twentieth century
Question 10.
When did the printing press first come to India?
(a) Mid-sixteenth century
(b) Seventeenth century
(c) Nineteenth century
(d) Twentieth century
Answer:
(a) Mid-sixteenth century
Very Short Answer Type Questions
Question 1.
Explain the earliest kind of print technology developed in China.
Answer:
The earliest kind of print technology developed in China was a system of hand
printing. From AD 594 onwards, books in China were printed by rubbing paper also invented there against the inked surface of woodblocks.
Question 2.
What did the new readership prefer in China?
Answer:
The new readership in China preferred fictional narratives, poems, autobiographies, anthologies of literary masterpieces, and romantic plays.
Question 3.
Why could not the production of handwritten manuscripts satisfy the ever-increasing demand for books?
Answer:
The production of handwritten manuscripts could not satisfy the ever increasing demand for books because copying was expensive, laborious and time-consuming. Manuscripts were fragile, awkward to handle, and could not be carried around or read easily.
Question 4.
What is Platen?
Answer:
Platen, in letterpress printing, is a board which is pressed onto the back of the paper to get the impression from the type. At one time, it is used to be a wooden board; later it was made of steel.
Question 5.
What was the print revolution?
Answer:
The print revolution was not just a development, a new way of producing books; it transformed the lives of people, changing their relationship to information and knowledge, and with institutions and authorities. It influenced popular perceptjpns and opened up new ways of looking at things.
Question 6.
What was Protestant Reformation?
Answer:
Protestant Reformation was a sixteenth- century movement to reform the Catholic Church dominated by Rome. Martin Luther was one of the main Protestant reformers. Several traditions of anti¬Catholic Christianity developed out of the movement.
Question 7.
What were almanacs?
Answer:
Almanac was an annual publication giving astronomical data, information about the movements of the sun and moon, timing of full tides and eclipses, and much else that was of importance in the everyday life of people.
Question 8.
What were chapbooks?
Answer:
Chapbooks were pocket-sized books that were sold by travelling pedlars called chapmen. These became popular from the time of the sixteenth-century print revolution.
Question 9.
What were penny magazines?
Answer:
Penny magazines were especially meant for women. They were manuals teaching proper behaviour and housekeeping.
Question 10.
What did the Deoband Seminary publish?
Answer:
The Deoband Seminary, founded in 1867, published thousand and thousand fatwas telling Muslim readers how to conduct themselves in their everyday lives, and explaining the meanings of Islamic doctrines.
Short Answer Type Questions
Question 1.
How did the print material come to Europe from China?
Answer:
For centuries, silk and spices have flowed from China to Europe through the silk route.
- In the eleventh century, Chinese paper reached Europe through the silk route.
- The great explorer, Marco Polo returned to Italy in 1295 after several years of exploration in China. China already had the technology of woodblock printing. Marco Polo brought this knowledge back with him.
- Italians began producing books with woodblocks, and soon the technology spread to other parts of Europe.
Question 2.
How did printing of visual material lead to interesting publishing practices?
Answer:
Printing of visual material led to interesting publishing practices. In the . late eighteenth century, in the flourishing urban circles at Edo (later to be known as Tokyo), illustrated collections of paintings depicted an elegant urban culture, involving artists, courtesans, and teahouse gatherings.
Libraries and bookstores were packed with hand-printed material of various types books on women, musical instruments, calculations, tea ceremony, flower arrangements, proper etiquette, cooking and famous places.
Question 3.
Describe the features of the book that were printed initially.
Answer:
The printed books initially resembled the written manuscripts in appearance and layout. The metal letters imitated the ornamental handwritten styles. Borders were illuminated by hand with foliage and other patterns, and illustrations were painted. In the books printed for the rich, space for decoration was kept blank on the printed page. Each purchaser could choose the design and decide on the painting school that would do the illustrations.
Question 4.
What led to the beginning of Protestant Reformation?
Answer:
In 1517, the religious reformer Martin Luther wrote Ninety Five Theses criticising many of the practices and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church. A printed copy of this was posted on a . chu’rch’door in Wittenberg. It challenged the Church to debate his ideas. Luther’s writings were immediately reproduced in vast numbers and read widely. This led to a division within the Church and to the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
Question 5.
What strategies did the printers and publishers continuously develop to sell their products?
Answer:
Printers and publishers continuously developed new strategies to sell their products. Nineteenth-century periodicals serialised important novels, which gave birth to a particular way of writing novels. In the 1920s in England, popular works were sold in cheap series, called the Shilling Series. The dust cover or the book jacket is also a twentieth-century innovation.
Question 6.
How did caricatures and cartoons reflect on social and political issues?
Answer:
By the 1870s, caricatures and cartoons were being published in journals and newspapers, commenting on social and political issues. Few caricatures ridiculed the educated Indians’ fascination with Western tastes and clothes, while few others expressed the fear of social change. There were imperial caricatures lampooning nationalists, as well as nationalist cartoons criticising imperial rule.
Question 7.
Discuss the types of books printed in the Battala area in central Calcutta.
Answer:
In Bengal, an entire area in central Calcutta, the Battala, was devoted to the printing of popular books. One could buy cheap editions of religious tracts and scriptures, as well as literature that was considered obscene and scandalous. By the late nineteenth century, a lot of these books were being profusely illustrated with woodcuts and coloured lithographs. Pedlars took the Battala publications to homes, enabling women to read them in their leisure time.
Question 8.
Describe the characteristics of women readers and writers of the nineteenth century Europe.
Answer:
- Women became important both as readers as well as writers in the nineteenth century Europe.
- Penny magazines were especially meant for women. They were manuals for teaching proper behaviour and housekeeping.
- When novels began to be written in the nineteenth century, women were seen as important readers. Some of the best- known novelists were women. They were Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, George Eliot, etc.
- Their writings became important in finding a new type of woman a person with will, strength of personality, determination and the power to think.
Question 9.
How did the ideas of scientists and philosophers become accessible to the common people?
Answer:
- With the reading mania, the ideas of scientists and philosophers became more accessible to the common people. Ancient and medieval scientific texts were compiled and published, and maps and scientific diagrams were widely printed.
- When scientists like Isaac Newton began to publish their discoveries, they could influence a much wider circle of scientifically minded readers. ,
- 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.
Long Answer Type Questions
Question 1.
Explain the printing press developed by Gutenberg.
Answer:
- Gutenberg learnt the art of polishing ‘ stoned became a master goldsmith, and also acquired the expertise to create gold moulds used for making trinkets.
- Drawing on this knowledge, He adapted existing technology to design his innovation.
- The olive press provided the model for the printing press, and moulds were used for casting the metal types for the letters of the alphabet. By 1448, Gutenberg perfected the system.
- The first book he printed was the Bible. About 180 copies were printed and it took three years to produce them.
- By the standards of the time this was a fast production.
Question 2.
Explain how with the printing press, the line that separated the oral and reading cultures became blurred.
Answer:
Access to books created a new culture of reading.
(i) Common people lived in a world of oral culture. Knowledge was transferred orally. People collectively heard a story, or saw a performance. Now books could reach out to wider sections of people. If there was a hearing public before, now emerged a reading public.
(ii) The transition was not very simple. Books could be read only by the literate, and the rate of literacy in most European countries was very low till the twentieth century. Publishers had to keep in mind the wider reach of the printed work. Even those who could not read could enjoy listening to books being read out. Printers began publishing popular ballads and folk tales, and illustrated it profusely with pictures. These were then sung and recited at gatherings in villages and in taverns in towns.
(iii) Oral culture thus entered print and printed material was orally transmitted. The line that separated the oral and reading cultures became blurred.
Question 3.
What was the reaction of the Roman Catholic Church towards the influence of the people on religious literature?
Answer:
- Print and popular religious literature stimulated many distinctive individual interpretations of faith, even among the little educated working people.
- In the sixteenth century, Menocchio, a miller in Italy, began to read books, reinterpreted the message of the Bible and formulated a view of God and Creation that enraged the Roman Catholic Church.
- When the Roman Church began its inquisition to repress heretical ideas, Menochhio was hauled up twice and ultimately executed.
- The Roman Church, troubled by such effects on popular readings and questionings of faith, imposed several controls over publishers and booksellers and began to maintain an Index of Prohibited Books from 1558.
Question 4.
What points were kept in mind while developing children’s books in the nineteenth century?
Answer:
- As 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.
- A children’s press, dedicated to literature for children alone, was set up in “France in 1857. This press published new works as well as old fairy tales and folk tales.
- The Grimm Brothers in Germany spent years compiling traditional folk tales gathered from the peasants. What they collected was edited before the stories were published in a collection in 1812.
- Anything that was not considered suitable for children or would appear vulgar to the elites, was not included in the published versioif. Rural folk tales thus acquired a new form.
Question 5.
‘TVemble, therefore, tyrants of the world! Tremble before the virtual writer!’ Who made this statement? What does it refer to?’
Answer:
- By the mid-eighteenth century, there was a common conviction that books were a means of spreading progress and enlightenment.
- Many believed that books could change the world, liberate society from despotism and tyranny, and herald a time when reason and intellect would rule.
- In many of Mercier’s novels, the heroes are transformed by acts of reading. They devour books, are lost in the world books create, and become enlightened in the process.
- Convinced of the power of print in bringing enlightenment and destroying the basis of despotism, Mercier proclaimed, ‘Tremble, therefore, tyrants of the world! Tremble before the virtual writer!’
Question 6.
Many historians have argued that print culture created the conditions within which French Revolution occurred. Justify.
Answer:
Three points have been put forward in support of the belief of the historians that print culture created the conditions within which French Revolution occurred.
(i) The writings of enlightenment thinkers 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.
The sacred authority of the Church and the despotic power of the state were questioned; thus, eroding the legitimacy of a social order based on tradition. Those who read the books written by Voltaire and Rousseau saw the world with new eyes that were questioning, critical and rational.
(ii) New ideas of social revolution came into being. All values, norms and institutions were re-evaluated and discussed by a public that had become aware of the power of reason, and recognised the need to question existing ideas and beliefs.
(iii) By the 1780s there were outpourings of literature that mocked the royalty and criticised their morality. Cartoons and caricatures typically suggested that the monarchy remained absorbed only in sensual pleasures while the common people suffered immense hardships. This literature circulated underground and led to the growth of hostile sentiments against the monarchy.
Question 7.
Discuss the series of innovations that took place in the printing technology through the nineteenth century.
Answer:
There were a series of innovations in printing technology through the nineteenth century.
- By the mid-nineteenth century, Richard M. Hoe of New York had perfected the power-driven cylindrical press. This machine was capable of printing 8,000 sheets per hour. It was particularly useful for printing newspapers.
- In the late nineteenth century, the offset press was developed, which could print up to six colours at a time.
- At the beginning of the twentieth century, electrically operated presses accelerated printing operations.
- Methods of feeding paper improved, the quality of plates became better, automatic paper reels and photoelectric controls of the colour register were introduced.
Question 8.
Describe the Vernacular Press Act, 1878.
Answer:
(i) However, after the Revolt of 1857, the attitude of the freedom of the press changed. Enraged Englishmen demanded a clamp down on the ‘native’ press. As vernacular newspapers became assertively nationalist, the colonial government began debating measures of stringent control.
(ii) In 1878, the Vernacular Press Act was passed modelled on the Irish Press Laws. It provided the government with extensive rights to censor reports and editorials in the vernacular press. From then on, the government kept regular track of the vernacular newspapers published in different provinces. When a report was judged as seditious, the newspaper was warned, and if the warning was not heeded to, the press was liable to be seized and the printing machinery confiscated,
(iii) Despite repressive measures, nationalist newspapers grew in numbers in all parts of India. They reported on colonial misrule and encouraged nationalist activities.
Activity Based Questions
Question 1.
Study the image carefully and answer the following questions:
(a) Identify the person in the image.
(b) Which system did he innovate?
(c) Describe the system.
Answer:
(a) The person in the image is Johannes Gutenberg.
(b) Gutenberg learnt the art of polishing stones, became a master goldsmith, and also acquired the expertise to create lead moulds for creating trinkets. Using this knowledge, he adapted existing printing technology to design his innovation.
(c) This is the Gutenberg printing press. It had a long handle attached with the screw. The handle was used to turn the screw and press down the platen over the printing block that was placed on top of a sheet of damp paper. Gutenberg developed metal types for each of the 26 characters of the Roman alphabet and devised a way of moving them around so as to compose different words of the text.
This came to be known as the moveable type printing machine, and it remained the basic printing technology over the next 300 years. Books could now be produced much faster than was possible when each print block was prepared by carving a piece of wood by hand. The Gutenberg press could print 250 sheets on one side per hour.
Question 2.
Study the picture carefully and answer the following questions:
(a) Identify the style of literature.
(b) When did this style of literature emerge?
(c) What does this image reflect about the society?
Answer:
(a) This style of literature is known as cartoons and caricatures.
(b) This style of literature emerged during the 1780s, when there was an outpouring of literature, like cartoons and caricatures that mocked the royalty and criticised their morality.
(c) These cartoons and caricatures reflected that the royalty was absorbed only in sensual pleasures while the common people suffered immense hardships.
Box Questions
Box 4
Sometimes, the government found it hard to find candidates for editorship of loyalist papers. When Sanders, editor of the Statesman that had been founded in 1877, was approached, he asked rudely how much he would be paid for suffering the loss of freedom. The Friend of India refused a government subsidy, fearing that this would force it to be obedient to government commands.
(a) What is the context being referred to over here?
(b) Why was there such an action?
(c) Do you think it is right to control the press? Give reasons for your answer.
Answer:
(a) Censorship of press is being talked about over here. The East India Company was worried about Englishmen in India who openly criticised the misrule and actions of the Company through the print media. After the Revolt of 1857, the Vernacular Press Act was passed in 1878, which gave the government extensive rights to censor reports and editorials in the vernacular press.
(b) Freedom of the press got curbed. It is through print that people express their views and opinions and those reading it form a picture of the society, learn about the functioning and administration of the government. If information is withheld, the society at large will be in dark. Press was mainly censored at that time to cut down and control the nationalist movement and to restrict people on reporting about colonial misrule.
(c) It is not right to control the press. The press should have the freedom to express its views in print or any other medium and relay it to the mass. The common people depend on the press to form an opinion about the government. The society should judge correctly the information given in the press, analyze it carefully and take any action required.
If information is curbed, people will not be able to form the right views and incorrect action may be taken which may lead to undesirable consequences. If the society needs to progress and develop, the print media or any other media should be given the freedom. The media should channelize information with responsibility and care.