ASSIGNMENT

Assignment

Assignment

Factors Contributing to Making Gutenberg's Discovery of the Printing Press

The power of Gutenberg's press came from the information access it provided. This began the process of making religious information available to the masses. As Francis Bacon (amongst others) said, knowledge is power. Access to information eventually disinter mediated the religious leaders of the Catholic Church. Disintermediation is a term used by Canadian futurist Donald Tapscott (Agrawala 2005). New technologies permit direct access to the source of information, services, or goods. Gutenberg's press allowed direct access for the masses to information that was contained in the Bible and other scholarly works. This was a highly disruptive technology, because it meant that church leaders were no longer the only means for access to the Word of God. Access to this information gave the power to the people. In doing so, it turned the medieval world upside down. One caveat is that while this technology had a powerful and pervasive impact, this happened over a long period of time (300 years). But eventually, Gutenberg's press fundamentally changed the relationship between the producer of information (the Church) and the consumer of information (the masses) (Aquilera 2007). This invention led in due course to the Reformation and certainly contributed to the Renaissance. We are living in extraordinary times. Our modern world is being turned completely

Upside down before our very eyes. This has primarily to do with the implications of with the appearance of microelectronics into our world. Microelectronics has led to the world of Gates. His meteoric rise in success simply typifies the astounding shift that is occurring today. The electronic phenomenon of the last 25 years has matured very quickly into an on-line revolution that has fundamentally changed our world. But there is a huge difference between what happened in Gutenberg's time and what's happening today, because it's all happening in fast-forward. We're now dealing with an accelerated rate of change - change that is happening not only quickly but also pervasively (Ascott 2001). In fact, things are happening so quickly that it's hard to understand what's going on or even recognize all of the implications. Consider for a moment that the microelectronics revolution only began 35 years ago - that the desktop computer only appeared 25 years ago - that the World Wide Web really only arrived about ten years ago - or that wireless connectivity is just now becoming commonplace!

Humanist Aspects of Machiavelli's the Prince

Niccolò Machiavelli, born in 1469, wrote The Prince during 1513 while living in political exile at his country house outside of Florence. He had served as head of the second chancery of the Florentine republic, but was dismissed after it fell in 1512. The Medici family was again ruling Florence, and a Medici also sat on the papal throne in Rome (Ascott 2004). Machiavelli tried unsuccessfully to use this treatise to gain an advisory appointment either to the papacy or the court of the Duke. The Prince was published in 1532; five years after Machiavelli died (Kahn ...