TED Books

"As explicated by Elizabeth Eisenstein in The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, the vast expansion of reading-powered thinkers from a tiny elite, handpicked and supported by the Church, into entire populations during the Protestant Reformation, made new collective cultural forms possible.32 Instead of waiting for an Aristotle or a Newton to come along, science became a collective enterprise, with thousands of literate observers adding data and building upon each other's work. The revolutions that replaced monarchs with constitutions were led by literates who coordinated the overthrow of old orders and then wrote the charters for new ones."

Check out this great ebook from TED Books. You can find this title, and the entire TED Books lineup, at ted.com/tedbooks.