NCERT Solutions for Class 10 Social Science (India and the Contemporary World – II) Chapter 5: Print Culture and the Modern World
These Class 10 History Chapter 5 solutions cover Print Culture and the Modern World from the NCERT textbook India and the Contemporary World – II, for the 2026–27 session. The chapter traces the development of print from its beginnings in East Asia (China, Japan, Korea) to its expansion in Europe through Gutenberg’s printing press, and finally to its arrival and growth in India. Below you get step-by-step answers to every question in the “Write in brief” and “Discuss” exercises, reproduced verbatim from the NCERT book, along with key terms, extra practice, MCQs, Assertion–Reason questions and FAQs.
Class: 10Subject: Social Science (History)Book: India and the Contemporary World – IIChapter: 5Title: Print Culture and the Modern WorldSession: 2026–27
Chapter 5, Print Culture and the Modern World, explains how the printed word shaped the modern world. The earliest print technology — hand printing using woodblocks — developed in China, Japan and Korea from around AD 594. Print came to Europe after Marco Polo returned from China in 1295; the great breakthrough was Johann Gutenberg’s printing press (1430s–1448), whose first major book was the Bible. The ‘print revolution’ created a new reading public, blurred the line between oral and reading cultures, fuelled the Protestant Reformation and religious dissent (Luther, Menocchio, the Index of Prohibited Books), produced a ‘reading mania’ in the eighteenth century, and helped create the conditions for the French Revolution. In India, print arrived with Portuguese missionaries in Goa in the mid-sixteenth century; it powered religious reform debates, gave new voices to women, the poor and reformers, and became a powerful tool of nationalism — provoking colonial censorship such as the Vernacular Press Act of 1878.
Key Terms & Concepts
Calligraphy: the art of beautiful and stylised writing, perfected by skilled craftsmen in the age of hand printing.
Woodblock / hand printing: the earliest print technology, developed in China, Japan and Korea, in which paper was rubbed against the inked surface of carved woodblocks.
Movable / moveable type printing: Gutenberg’s system of casting separate metal types for each letter of the alphabet, which could be re-arranged to compose any text — the basic print technology for the next 300 years.
Platen: in letterpress printing, the board pressed onto the back of the paper to take the impression from the type.
Compositor & Galley: the compositor is the person who composes (arranges) the text for printing; a galley is the metal frame in which the types are laid and the text composed.
Vellum: a parchment made from the skin of animals, used for luxury handwritten editions.
Protestant Reformation: a sixteenth-century movement, led by reformers like Martin Luther, to reform the Roman Catholic Church.
Inquisition & Heretical beliefs: the Inquisition was a Roman Catholic court for identifying and punishing heretics; heretical beliefs are those that do not follow the accepted teachings of the Church.
Almanac, Chapbook & Ballad: an almanac is an annual publication giving astronomical and everyday information; a chapbook is a pocket-sized book sold by travelling pedlars (chapmen); a ballad is a historical account or folk tale in verse, usually sung or recited.
Ulama & Fatwa: the ulama are legal scholars of Islam and the sharia; a fatwa is a legal pronouncement on Islamic law given by a mufti to clarify uncertain issues.
Seditious & Despotism: ‘seditious’ describes action, speech or writing seen as opposing the government; ‘despotism’ is a system in which absolute power is exercised by an individual without legal or constitutional checks.
“Write in brief” & “Discuss” — Full Solutions
All questions below are reproduced verbatim from the NCERT textbook’s end-of-chapter exercises (“Write in brief” and “Discuss”). Answers are original, written in exam-ready style.
Write in brief
1. Give reasons for the following:
a) Woodblock print only came to Europe after 1295.b) Martin Luther was in favour of print and spoke out in praise of it.c) The Roman Catholic Church began keeping an Index of Prohibited books from the mid-sixteenth century.d) Gandhi said the fight for Swaraj is a fight for liberty of speech, liberty of the press, and freedom of association.
ANSWERa) Although China had used woodblock printing for centuries, Europe had no contact with this technology until the famous explorer Marco Polo returned to Italy in 1295 after spending many years exploring China. He brought back the knowledge of woodblock printing with him. Only then did Italians begin producing books with woodblocks, and the technology gradually spread to other parts of Europe. So woodblock print came to Europe only after 1295.b) In 1517 Martin Luther wrote his Ninety Five Theses criticising the practices of the Roman Catholic Church. Thanks to print, his writings were immediately reproduced in vast numbers and read widely, leading to the Protestant Reformation; his translation of the New Testament sold 5,000 copies within a few weeks. Print thus allowed Luther to spread his ideas quickly and challenge the Church. Deeply grateful for this, he said, ‘Printing is the ultimate gift of God and the greatest one.’ That is why he praised print.c) Print created the possibility of the wide circulation of ideas, and even ordinary, little-educated people began to read and reinterpret sacred texts in their own way. For example, Menocchio, an Italian miller, reinterpreted the Bible and formed views about God and Creation that enraged the Church; he was tried and executed. Troubled by such popular questioning of faith and the spread of irreligious and rebellious ideas, the Roman Church imposed severe controls over publishers and booksellers and began to maintain an Index of Prohibited Books from 1558 to check what people read.d) Gandhi said this because freedom of speech, a free press and the freedom of association are the three most powerful means by which people express, cultivate and circulate public opinion. The colonial government was trying to crush all three to suppress nationalist criticism. Gandhi believed that without these freedoms there could be no real freedom; controlling them was a way of controlling people’s minds. Therefore the fight for Swaraj (self-rule) was, before all else, a fight to protect these threatened liberties.
2. Write short notes to show what you know about:
a) The Gutenberg Pressb) Erasmus’s idea of the printed bookc) The Vernacular Press Act
ANSWERa) The Gutenberg Press: Johann Gutenberg of Strasbourg, Germany, developed the first-known printing press in the 1430s and perfected it by 1448. He adapted existing technology — the olive press provided the model for the printing press, and metal moulds were used to cast the types for the letters of the alphabet. He created movable metal types for each of the 26 characters of the Roman alphabet, which could be moved around to compose words. The first book he printed was the Bible (about 180 copies in three years). The press could print 250 sheets on one side per hour, making book production far faster than hand carving, and it remained the basic print technology for the next 300 years.b) Erasmus’s idea of the printed book: Erasmus, a Latin scholar and Catholic reformer, expressed a deep anxiety about printing. Writing in his Adages (1508), he complained about the ‘swarms of new books’. He felt that although one book here and there might be worth reading, the sheer multitude of books was harmful to scholarship because it created a glut. He feared that printers were filling the world not only with trifling works but with ‘stupid, ignorant, slanderous, scandalous, raving, irreligious and seditious’ books, and that their number was so great that even valuable publications lost their value.c) The Vernacular Press Act: After the Revolt of 1857, as vernacular newspapers became assertively nationalist, the colonial government decided on stringent control. In 1878 the Vernacular Press Act was passed, modelled on the Irish Press Laws. It gave the government extensive rights to censor reports and editorials in the vernacular press. The government kept regular track of vernacular newspapers; if a report was judged seditious, the newspaper was first warned, and if the warning was ignored, the press was liable to be seized and the printing machinery confiscated.
3. What did the spread of print culture in nineteenth century India mean to:
a) Womenb) The poorc) Reformers
ANSWERa) Women: Print made the lives and feelings of women visible as never before, and women’s reading increased greatly in middle-class homes. Liberal husbands and fathers educated their womenfolk at home or sent them to the new girls’ schools. Journals carried writings by women and explained why they should be educated, and some women defied conservative families to learn to read — for example, Rashsundari Debi wrote her autobiography Amar Jiban (1876). Writers like Kailashbashini Debi, Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai wrote about the harsh condition of women. Print thus became a means of education, self-expression and protest for women.b) The poor: Very cheap small books were brought to markets and sold at crossroads, so even poor people could buy them. Public libraries were set up from the early twentieth century, expanding access to books. Importantly, print gave a voice to caste protest: Jyotiba Phule wrote about caste injustices in Gulamgiri (1871), and later B.R. Ambedkar and E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker (Periyar) wrote powerfully on caste. Workers like Kashibaba and Sudarshan Chakr published their writings, and millworkers set up libraries to educate themselves. Print thus spread literacy, awareness and ideas of justice among the poor.c) Reformers: Print became a powerful weapon in the hands of social and religious reformers. Intense debates over issues like widow immolation, idolatry, monotheism and Brahmanical priesthood were carried out in public through printed tracts and newspapers. Rammohun Roy published the Sambad Kaumudi from 1821, while the orthodoxy brought out the Samachar Chandrika to oppose him. Ideas were printed in everyday spoken language to reach a wider audience, allowing the public to participate in these discussions. Print thus helped reformers spread their ideas, shape public debate and form new opinions.
Discuss
1. Why did some people in eighteenth century Europe think that print culture would bring enlightenment and end despotism?
ANSWERBy the mid-eighteenth century there was a common conviction that books were a means of spreading progress and enlightenment, and that they could liberate society from despotism and tyranny and usher in an age of reason and intellect. People believed this for several reasons.First, print spread the ideas of Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire and Rousseau, who provided a critical commentary on tradition, superstition and despotism, and argued for the rule of reason. Those who read these books began to see the world with questioning, critical and rational eyes, and attacked the sacred authority of the Church and the despotic power of the state.Secondly, print created a new culture of dialogue and debate, through which all values and institutions were re-evaluated by a public aware of the power of reason. The novelist Louise-Sebastien Mercier declared, ‘The printing press is the most powerful engine of progress and public opinion is the force that will sweep despotism away,’ and even warned, ‘Tremble, therefore, tyrants of the world!’ People therefore believed print would bring enlightenment and destroy the basis of despotism.
2. Why did some people fear the effect of easily available printed books? Choose one example from Europe and one from India.
ANSWERNot everyone welcomed printed books. Many were apprehensive that the easier access to the printed word and the wider circulation of books would have a harmful effect on people’s minds. They feared that if there was no control over what was printed and read, then rebellious and irreligious thoughts might spread, and the authority of ‘valuable’ literature would be destroyed. This anxiety was expressed by religious authorities, monarchs, and even many writers and artists.Example from Europe: The Roman Catholic Church feared that print would spread heretical ideas. When Menocchio, an Italian miller, read books and reinterpreted the message of the Bible in a way that enraged the Church, he was tried by the Inquisition and executed. The Church then imposed severe controls on publishers and maintained an Index of Prohibited Books.Example from India: In north India, the ulama feared that colonial rule and the spread of print would encourage conversion to Christianity and change Muslim personal laws. To counter this fear, they used cheap lithographic presses to publish Persian and Urdu translations of holy scriptures and printed religious newspapers, tracts and fatwas to guide Muslims in their everyday lives and protect their faith.
3. What were the effects of the spread of print culture for poor people in nineteenth century India?
ANSWERThe spread of print had several important effects for poor people in nineteenth-century India. Very cheap, small books were brought to markets in towns like Madras and sold at crossroads, so that even poor people travelling to markets could afford to buy them. From the early twentieth century, public libraries were set up in cities, towns and sometimes prosperous villages, expanding access to books.Print also gave the poor a powerful means to question social injustice. From the late nineteenth century, issues of caste discrimination began to be written about in printed tracts and essays. Jyotiba Phule wrote about the injustices of the caste system in Gulamgiri (1871), and in the twentieth century B.R. Ambedkar and Periyar wrote powerfully on caste, and their writings were read all over India.Workers, too, found a voice. Although factory workers were overworked and lacked education, some like Kashibaba (who wrote Chhote Aur Bade Ka Sawal, 1938) showed the links between caste and class exploitation. By the 1930s, Bangalore and Bombay millworkers set up libraries to educate themselves, often sponsored by social reformers. Print thus spread literacy, awareness and ideas of equality and justice among the poor.
4. Explain how print culture assisted the growth of nationalism in India.
ANSWERPrint culture played a major role in the growth of nationalism in India. Newspapers and journals spread information from one part of the country to another, conveying news and helping to create a sense of pan-Indian identity among people who had never met. Through print, Indians could share their experiences of colonial misrule and unite against it.As vernacular newspapers became assertively nationalist, they openly reported on colonial misrule and encouraged nationalist activities. Despite repressive measures like the Vernacular Press Act of 1878, nationalist newspapers grew in numbers all over India. Attempts to throttle this criticism only provoked militant protest. For example, when Punjab revolutionaries were deported in 1907, Balgangadhar Tilak wrote with great sympathy about them in his newspaper Kesari; his imprisonment in 1908 in turn provoked widespread protests all over India.Print also carried the ideas of reformers and leaders into the homes of ordinary people, raised political awareness, and made debate and the cultivation of public opinion possible. By spreading nationalist ideas widely and binding people into a community of readers, print thus assisted the growth of nationalism in India.
Extra Practice Questions
Short Answer Type Questions
Q1. Where did the earliest print technology develop, and what kind of printing was it?
ANSWERThe earliest print technology developed in China, Japan and Korea. It was a system of hand printing: from AD 594 onwards, books in China were printed by rubbing paper against the inked surface of carved woodblocks. The thin, porous Chinese ‘accordion book’ was folded and stitched at the side.
Q2. Who introduced the printing press in India, and where?
ANSWERThe printing press first came to India with Portuguese missionaries in the mid-sixteenth century at Goa. Jesuit priests learnt Konkani and printed several tracts; by 1674 about 50 books had been printed in Konkani and Kanara. The first Tamil book was printed in 1579 at Cochin and the first Malayalam book in 1713.
Q3. What was the ‘reading mania’ in Europe?
ANSWERThrough the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as literacy rates rose to 60–80 per cent in parts of Europe, there was a virtual ‘reading mania’. People eagerly wanted books, and printers produced them in ever-increasing numbers — almanacs, ballads, folk tales, penny chapbooks, the French Bibliotheque Bleue, romances and periodicals — serving many interests.
Q4. How did print create a new reading public?
ANSWERWith the printing press, the cost, time and labour of producing books fell, and multiple copies could be made easily. Books flooded the market and reached a far wider readership than before. Earlier, reading was restricted to elites and common people lived in an oral culture; now a reading public came into being, and the line between the hearing and reading publics became blurred.
Q5. What was the Deoband Seminary, and how did it use print?
ANSWERThe Deoband Seminary, founded in 1867, was an Islamic seminary in north India. It used cheap lithographic presses and Urdu print to publish thousands of fatwas telling Muslim readers how to conduct themselves in everyday life and explaining the meanings of Islamic doctrines, helping different Muslim sects conduct their debates in public.
Long Answer Type Questions
Q1. Describe how print culture developed in China and Japan before the age of mechanical printing.
ANSWERIn China, hand printing using woodblocks developed from AD 594, and the imperial state was for a long time the major producer of printed material, printing textbooks in vast numbers for its civil service examinations. By the seventeenth century, as urban culture bloomed, print diversified: merchants used it for trade information and reading became a leisure activity, with fiction, poetry and plays in demand. Rich women began to read and even publish their work. Western mechanical printing arrived in the late nineteenth century, and Shanghai became the hub of the new print culture. In Japan, Buddhist missionaries from China introduced hand printing around AD 768–770; the oldest dated book, the Buddhist Diamond Sutra (AD 868), came from this tradition. In medieval Japan books were cheap and abundant, and in eighteenth-century Edo (Tokyo) illustrated collections depicted an elegant urban culture. Artists like Kitagawa Utamaro developed the ukiyo (‘pictures of the floating world’) print form, which later influenced European painters like Manet, Monet and Van Gogh.
Q2. How did print culture help create the conditions for the French Revolution?
ANSWERMany historians argue that print culture created the conditions within which the French Revolution occurred, and three arguments are usually put forward. First, print popularised the ideas of Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire and Rousseau, who criticised tradition, superstition and despotism and argued for the rule of reason; those who read them saw the world through questioning and critical eyes, eroding the legitimacy of a social order based on tradition. Secondly, print created a new culture of dialogue and debate in which all values and institutions were re-evaluated by a public aware of the power of reason, giving birth to new ideas of social revolution. Thirdly, by the 1780s there was an outpouring of literature, cartoons and caricatures that mocked the royalty and criticised their morality, suggesting the monarchy was absorbed in pleasure while the people suffered; this circulated underground and bred hostility towards the monarchy. However, we must remember that print did not directly shape people’s minds — they read many kinds of literature, accepted some ideas and rejected others; print opened up the possibility of thinking differently.
Q3. Explain the changes that took place in printing technology from the fifteenth to the twentieth century.
ANSWERPrinting technology changed enormously over these centuries. Around the 1430s–1448, Johann Gutenberg developed the first printing press in Germany, using movable metal type modelled on the olive press; it could print 250 sheets an hour and remained the basic technology for 300 years. By the late eighteenth century, presses came to be made of metal. In the nineteenth century, Richard M. Hoe of New York perfected the power-driven cylindrical press, which could print 8,000 sheets an hour and was ideal for newspapers. Later in the nineteenth century, the offset press was developed, which could print up to six colours at a time. From the turn of the twentieth century, electrically operated presses speeded up printing, and methods of feeding paper, the quality of plates, automatic paper reels and photoelectric colour controls all improved. Publishers also developed new sales strategies — serialised novels, the cheap ‘Shilling Series’, the dust cover or book jacket, and cheap paperback editions during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
MCQs & Assertion–Reason
1. The earliest kind of print technology was developed in:
(a) Europe (b) China, Japan and Korea (c) India (d) the USA
2. Who brought the knowledge of woodblock printing from China to Europe?
(a) Johann Gutenberg (b) Martin Luther (c) Marco Polo (d) Erasmus
3. The first book printed by Johann Gutenberg was the:
For each Assertion–Reason question, choose: (A) Both true and the Reason correctly explains the Assertion; (B) Both true but the Reason is not the correct explanation; (C) Assertion true, Reason false; (D) Assertion false, Reason true.
A-R 1. Assertion: The printing press created a new reading public in Europe.
Reason: Printing reduced the cost, time and labour of producing books, so multiple copies could reach a wider readership.
A-R 2. Assertion: Martin Luther praised print as the greatest gift of God.
Reason: Print enabled Luther’s writings to be reproduced in vast numbers and read widely, helping spread the Reformation.
A-R 3. Assertion: The colonial government passed the Vernacular Press Act in 1878.
Reason: After the Revolt of 1857, vernacular newspapers became assertively nationalist, and the government wanted stringent control over them.
A-R 4. Assertion: Print had no effect on the growth of nationalism in India.
Reason: Newspapers spread news across the country and created pan-Indian identities.
A-R 5. Assertion: Gutenberg’s printing press completely displaced the art of producing books by hand.
Reason: At first, printed books closely resembled written manuscripts, with metal letters imitating handwritten styles and borders illuminated by hand.
Answer key: 1-(A), 2-(A), 3-(A), 4-(D), 5-(D).
Exam Tips & Common Mistakes
How to score full marks in this chapter
Learn the key dates and people in order: hand printing in China (AD 594), Marco Polo (1295), Gutenberg’s press (1430s–1448), Luther’s Ninety Five Theses (1517), the Index of Prohibited Books (1558), print in Goa (mid-16th century), and the Vernacular Press Act (1878). For ‘give reasons’ questions, state the reason clearly and back it with the textbook example. For India-based questions, always link print to women, the poor, reformers and nationalism, naming people like Rashsundari Debi, Jyotiba Phule, Rammohun Roy and Tilak. Use the book’s own examples — Menocchio, Erasmus, Mercier, the Deoband Seminary, Kesari — to show you have studied the chapter.
Common mistakes to avoid
Confusing woodblock / hand printing (China) with Gutenberg’s movable metal type (Europe).
Saying Gutenberg invented printing — he developed the first movable-type printing press in Europe.
Mixing up the dates: Marco Polo (1295), Gutenberg’s Bible (by 1448), the Vernacular Press Act (1878).
Forgetting that print did not directly shape people’s minds — it opened up the possibility of thinking differently.
Confusing the reformers’ newspapers: Rammohun Roy’s Sambad Kaumudi vs the orthodox Samachar Chandrika.
Leaving ‘choose one example from Europe and one from India’ questions one-sided — always give both.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Chapter 5 of Class 10 History about?
Chapter 5, Print Culture and the Modern World, traces the history of print from hand printing in China, Japan and Korea, to Gutenberg’s printing press in Europe, and finally to print in India. It explains how print created a new reading public, fuelled the Reformation and the French Revolution, and helped the growth of religious reform and nationalism in India.
Who developed the first printing press in Europe?
Johann Gutenberg of Strasbourg, Germany, developed the first-known printing press in the 1430s and perfected it by 1448. He used movable metal types for each letter of the Roman alphabet, and the first major book he printed was the Bible.
What were the exercises in Class 10 History Chapter 5?
The end-of-chapter exercises in Print Culture and the Modern World are headed Write in brief (3 questions, several with sub-parts) and Discuss (4 questions). All of them are reproduced verbatim and answered step by step on this page, along with extra practice, MCQs and Assertion–Reason questions.
