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A comment on Luther's World: Understanding the man who was the powerhouse of the Reformation. Parent comment

Re:Luther's World: Understanding the man who was the powerho... by Nokinside on Monday May 08, 2017 @12:54PM (#14293357)
China and Korea had incredibly inconvenient and expensive moveable type that required extensive amount of labor. Page setting in western alphabet was much easier and Gutenberg invented good alloys to make it even easier. In addition Europe benefited from improved paper making technology like pulp mills (developed in Islamic world)

Just saying that Chinese had "moveable type" omits the technological and practical considerations that made European printing press success.

ps. Moveable type did bring some educational and political changes in China (centralism, opposition against government) but the effect was limited because Chinese writing system and inferior printing press technology.

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Re:Luther's World: Understanding the man who was the powerho... by 31h on Monday May 08, 2017 @05:16PM (#14295681)
> Just saying that Chinese had "moveable type" omits the technological and practical considerations that made European printing press success.

OK but just saying the Europeans had a superior printing press omits the the radical thinking and acting that made Martin Luther's doctrines a success.

Your position is like saying, baseball became America's national pass-time because of radio. Yes, radio existed and helped, but it wasn't radio broadcasts of soccer or regional hopscotch tournaments. Baseball made a particular appeal to the soul of the people and the time which soccer and hopscotch did not. The medium is not the message; content is king.

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