book
The Printing Press as an Agent of Change
Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
Why this matters here
Eisenstein’s The Printing Press as an Agent of Change shows how print multiplied identical texts across cities within years rather than generations, accelerating the spread of competing doctrines and claims to authority. Before Certainty Arrives takes that media shift as a pressure on certainty: disagreement could travel as quickly as doctrine, and communities tightened boundaries even as exposure widened. The book’s question is what happens to inherited moral order when the speed of contested texts outruns older tempos of settlement.
