Printing reached the Arab world before Gutenberg. Why didn't it flourish, as in East Asia or Europe?

This is irrelevant. Also wasn’t the adoption of gunpowder about the same time as the formation of the Ottoman Empire
 
This is irrelevant. Also wasn’t the adoption of gunpowder about the same time as the formation of the Ottoman Empire
Nope. Janissaries were originally primarily archers, and at the Field of Blackbirds the Ottomans had few firearms. It was only in the 1380s that the Ottomans began to really adopt gunpowder. See Guns for the Sultan: Military Power and the Weapons Industry in the Ottoman Empire.
 

Maoistic

Banned
The conquest of the Canaries, the model for European expansion into the Atlantic and later the Americas, begins in 1402.

The Ottomans did not kick Europeans out of their traditional trade routes, particularly when it comes to the Red Sea-Mediterranean trade.

Europe adopted gunpowder weaponry earlier than the Ottomans.

We only have your assertion that Gutenberg had anything to do with spreading military knowledge to defeat the Ottomans.


With or without Gutenberg's printing press, East Asia's printing industry was by and large comparable to the European one in scale and diversity. Why was this without the Ottomans, and without "the enormous material accumulation that came from colonialism and overseas trade especially after the 1490s" (insofar as the great expansion of trade within China and with Southeast Asia doesn't quite compare to European expansionism)?

No, East Asian printing did not compare at all to the printing done in Europe, especially during the 16th century. And even if the conquest of the Canaries started in the 15th century, active interest in it didn't kick off until the latter half of that same century, while the exploration of the Americas can't even be said to be of the 15th century since it happaned until the very end of it. And what the heck do you call conquering the Balkans and turning the Mediterranean into a Muslim lake if not kicking them out? Not to mention you keep ignoring the fact that the Ottomans were advancing into Western Europe. Also, no, you don't have only my assertion since the historical evidence is right there. The rapid technological developments that occurred in tandem in Western Europe can't be explained otherwise. And so what if Europe had gunpowder weapons before the Ottomans? They still only started to truly develop them until the 15th century.
 
No, East Asian printing did not compare at all to the printing done in Europe, especially during the 16th century.
From Marcia Yonemoto's Mapping Early Modern Japan: Space, Place, and Culture in the Tokugawa Period, 1603-1868, p.15:
Over the span of the entire Tokugawa period, it is likely that on average well over three thousand titles were published per year; ninety percent of these were commercial (as opposed to official or private) publications.​

From Peter France's The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French, p.105:
Only in the first half of the 19th c. did mechanization, industrial concentration, and professional specialization change the industry. Until then, the total annual production of books in France only exceeded 1,000 titles per year in the 1780s, while the average print-run remained at well under 2,000 copies per title.​

Population of Japan in the 1780s: A little more than 30 million

Population of France in the 1780s: Around 25 million

So you're correct! Japanese printing did not compare to the printing done in France; it was almost three times greater in scale. Not to mention that the disparity must have been even greater in the sixteenth century when European printing was not so developed.

Also, no, you don't have only my assertion since the historical evidence is right there. The rapid technological developments that occurred in tandem in Western Europe can't be explained otherwise.
Let's take printing, for example. Printing worked only because there was a large existing book market. Earlier in the Middle Ages, books were produced because rich and powerful people expressly requested them. Beginning with Dietrich Lauber's book-copying workshop in the 1420s, a veritable book market actually emerged in western Europe. This in turn made printing an actually profitable activity. Everything to do with the European economy, nothing to do with the Ottomans.
 
So was there less of a market, was there protectionist legislation pushed by the scribes, did the lack of a market for print Qurans cut possible profits, or?
 
You don't need one when your source is freaking Reddit, a cesspool of stupidity if there's one.
Then would you kindly provide a more valid source so that we may all be better informed on the topic at hand?

And in any case, I just need to point out that I said nothing about blocking the spice trade and Asian goods, I was talking about the Ottomans advancing further into Europe, which is different.

The Ottomans caused Europe to start developing new technologies because, on top of being kicked out of their traditional trade routes, they were trying to find ways to defend themselves and repel the Ottomans.
Well, now you did, so that point is now valid. Unless "alternate ways to India" wasn't to replace the spice trade and Asian goods from those traditional trade routes that were now blocked (or at least held in monopoly by a single nation with not the best of relations with the major trading powers of the Mediterranean).

I don't think the rapid development of full-plated armour, new sailing ships, gunpowder weapons, and the printing press - which helped in the dissemination of information to develop new weapons that could defend Europeans against the Ottomans - around the same time in the 15th century is coincidental.
You don't think so. Lovely. Can we have a source for that aside from 'coincidence being an invalid reason?' Also, Europe is not restricted to the block of land between the Danube and the Volga and I distinctly do not remember the French needing to fight against the Ottomans until the 20th century. But then again, it's not like Europe had any other major conflicts that would've necessitated military innovation among multiple major combatants, aside from the Hundred Years' War, War of the Roses, Hussite Wars, War of the Castillian Succession, or the general warzone that we in the current era call "Northern Italy," now did it? Granted, some developments in military tactics and equipment may have arisen from conflicts in Eastern Europe. But pinning an entire century of innovation on the Ottomans? As with the printing press, perhaps it helped against them as a side effect and thus gained popularity over there (would like a source on that), but the entire continent?

Not to mention you keep ignoring the fact that the Ottomans were advancing into Western Europe. Also, no, you don't have only my assertion since the historical evidence is right there. The rapid technological developments that occurred in tandem in Western Europe can't be explained otherwise. And so what if Europe had gunpowder weapons before the Ottomans? They still only started to truly develop them until the 15th century.

1. I don't think most people have the same definition of 'western,' seeing as Vienna is a bit...in the middle (well, technically Vilnius is the geographical center but we don't exactly call Lithuania Central European and Poland Western, do we? Usually western Europe starts at the Rhine, I think. But yeah, the traditional view is that Austria is in Central Europe, not Western, maybe western central if you'd like)? You keep citing the Ottomans and Western Europe but, as far as I know, the only exclusively Western European (western European from the CIA world factbook, I'll just use their classification) conflicts with the Ottomans until the 20th century were mostly naval in nature and even then weren't the only experiences of naval combat that those nations would've had in the 15th century (also not in the 15th century).

2. Yes, it truly cannot. There was literally no other reason that Europeans would advance militarily at such a pace, not the numerous, lengthy, and frequent wars being fought amongst the major regional powers in the 15th century, a century we commonly associate with peace and not a century of warfare x2.

3. They didn't exactly leap from Chinese fire rockets to castle busting cannons. Plus, cannons weren't exactly exclusively a response to Ottoman advances. Not sure about Eastern Europe but, at least for the Western Europeans you keep citing, it was for those pesky castles and fortifications that regular humans couldn't capture but had a nasty tendency to break after being struck by hot balls of iron hurtling towards them at (relatively at the time) high speeds and the horses that kept smashing people down but had an unfortunate habit of panicking (thus ending the charge and maybe the rider and horse's life if unlucky) when the air shattered before them. They were great for breaking morale and fort walls even during the Hundred Years' War, prior to the Ottomans eating all of the Balkans.
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
Well, the article I just hastily googled says: Arabic moveable type use started in Italy not long after Gutenberg (1455!), and was used for printing Christian literature for the Coptic church in Egypt. These were then copied all over Europe, with France, Italian states and the Spanish Netherlands printing Christian works in Arabic for the purpose of conversion. First Quran, Venice, 1530. The Ottomans specifically prohibited printed books for fear that someone might tamper with religious texts, however Dhimmis were permitted to print books. The article isn't clear on how this worked, but because there was a boom in Hebrew printing, I would suppose it was actually printing in the Arabic script that was prohibited.

It was not till 1720 that Arabic moveable type printing in Ottoman territory began, initially producing secular texts.

From this we can surmise that there was no great need for printed texts in the Ottoman world, and that the new technology was viewed as dangerous in that it allowed for the dissemination of "error". This is probably why they never made the effort to develop it first. I'm not sure what to make of that, literacy was almost certainly higher than in Europe so there was a market, but perhaps the fact that literacy was so closely linked with sacred texts is relevant.

I would like to say that I find it implausible that Central Europeans said "we better adopt this newfangled printing in order to stop the Turks!", given they were not playing a Paradox game.
 
Top