Block Printing first appeared in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), it became efficient to print books, however the drawbacks were that all the boards became useless after the printing was done and a single mistake in carving would ruin the whole block. The process of Block Printing was also costly and time-consuming.
In the Song Dynasty, Bisheng invented Movable Type Printing. Each Chinese character was carved onto a small block and after being processed with special procedures, became a piece of movable type. The pieces of movable type could be glued onto a plate and be easily detached from it. They could be assembled to print a page and then broken up and redistributed as needed.
This technology then spread to Korea, Japan, Vietnam and Europe.
http://en.radio86.com/china-past-and-present/history/world-changing-chinese-inventions-printing
I am very interested in your post. I have read very interesting articles on the advent of printing about a couple of weeks ago. Print as a medium of communication had a profound impact on the economic, social, religious, and political, cultural, and technological characteristic of the modern world. According to Benedict Anderson, “the convergence of capitalism and print technology on the fatal diversity of human language created the possibility of a new form of imagined community, which in its basic morphology set the stage for the modern nation” (Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities) In his work, Anderson describes the social, political and economic changes that took their place due to the advent of printing press. These changes led to a certain centralization of “particular vernaculars” (Benedict Anderson) and, as a consequence, resulted in the development of geo- territories equivalent to modern nations. As a case in point, Anderson points out that the printing press was a major factor in creating the “pre-conditions” for nationalism, since it contributed to the evolvement distinguished difference in the way people write, and think. The explanation of such an immense effect of the printing press stems from the omnipresent nature of this innovation.
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