The speed of adoption

How the printing press conquered Europe in a single century

When Johannes Gutenberg unveiled his movable-type printing press in Mainz around 1450, he unleashed a technological wildfire.

By 1500, Europe buzzed with over 1,000 printing shops producing 20 million books—a tenfold increase from manuscript production rates. This wasn’t just innovation; it was a perfect storm of existing technologies converging: metal …