CLEP Western Civ I

Answer: D - Gutenberg’s 1439 invention of movable type and the printing press ignited the Printing Revolution and made written material available to the masses. It is generally regarded as the most important invention of the modern age. It revolutionized education (both self-education and institutional education), religious worship, news-based mass communication, historical record keeping, political discourse and the arts. A German poem may have been his first official printing on the press. His masterwork was an edition of the Bible, commonly referred to as the Gutenberg Bible, which has been noted for the great aesthetic skill employed in engraving the pieces of type and printing each page. About 180 copies were printed, of which, 48 endure. It is impossible to overstate to significance of this invention. It was one of the most important inventions in the history of the human race- it ranks up there with the wheel, the light bulb and the telephone.