printed book represents a rich composite of previous cultural 
inventions. The total effort embodied in the illustrated book in 
print offers a striking example of the variety of separate acts of 
invention that are requisite to bring about a new technological 
result.

     The psychic and social consequences of print included an 
extension of its fissile and uniform character to the gradual 
homogenization of diverse regions with the resulting 
amplification of power, energy, and aggression that we 
associate with new nationalisms. Psychically, the visual 
extension and amplification of the individual by print had many 
effects. Perhaps as striking as any other is the one mentioned 
by Mr. E. M. Forster, who, when discussing some Renaissance 
types, suggested that “the printing press, then only a century 
old, had been mistaken for an engine of immortality, and men