Evolution of Books

Introduction

Writing is an organized system of symbols used in language which allow a person in communication to convey and conserve information. There are different opinions regarding the actual origin of writing practices amongst the historians and linguist experts. But according to the majority of historian, the history of writing can be traced back to the 7th millennium BC. At that time the writing was mainly in the form of early mnemonic symbols that, with the passage of system, transformed into a system of ideograms or pictographs by means of simplification. The historian evidences, thus, suggest that the earliest known forms of writing were principally logographic in its nature. As the civilizations moved on, the trends in writing have changed and syllabic and alphabetic style of writing surfaced.

Historically, writing was done in many forms and ways. In addition brushes, there are also other material used as base upon which the writers used to writer something they deemed important and worthy of preserving and transmitting for other people and for the generations to come. The type of material which was used as a base for those writing in during the early times included pottery, bone, shell, bronze, etc. People of Indian, for example, used dried palm tree as the base whereas Amate, another kind of plant, was used for the same purpose in Mesoamerica. As a matter of principle, any kind of material was a possible candidate of bookmaking if it had the capability of holding and transmitting information. This paper briefly discuses different phases in the history of books and books publishing industry as it evolved during the early and modern periods, reviewing relevant research in the field.

Discussion

Renaissance & Colonial Era Books

Britain had remained the major colonial power until the end of Second World War and the country ruled over many overseas colonies. The period between 1780 and 1830 marked the era of unparallel expansion in the Britain's colonial rule when it had captured parts of Canada and India. Coincidently the same period also saw the rise of new phenomenon which was later called as “the rise of reading public”, with the increased number of readers in the areas where British were ruling. In his research article, “Imperial Reading: The East India Company's Lending Libraries for Soldiers”, the scholar Sharon Murphy (2009) has discussed different factors which determined the nature and subject of books that were published during this colonial period. The author is of the view that the Britain had, during that time, facilitated the publishing and spread of certain books aimed at creating and nurturing a sense of loyalty towards the British Empire in order to avoid any violent insurgency against the colonial ruler (Murphy, 2009, pp. 74-99)

The author has also pointed out different works, mainly of Mansfield Park (1814) and Robinson Crusoe (1719), which promoted the inevitability and necessity of the British Empire among the readers in order to prolong their rule in the colonies while preventing the rise of people living in those colonies ...