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The First Information Revolution
How the Printing Press Changed Everything
In 1455, two years after the fall of Constantinople, another battle brewed. This one wasn’t about who had the biggest cannon or the strongest walls. It was about a perhaps deadlier topic: money.
In one corner sat an inventor who could sometimes get distracted and didn’t always quite deliver against his commitments. In the other corner sat the inventor’s financial backer, who claimed the inventor had failed to fulfill the terms of his contract.
The court carefully considered both sides before deciding in favor of the investor. The inventor, who had just delivered something improbably difficult, something that sits in museums today and that seemed primed for runaway commercial ...
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