Publishing House (CTP2)

Publishing House
Requires	Printing Press
Production cost	1375
Upkeep	3
Effects
+15% Science

Publishing House is a building in Call to Power II.

Gameplay

Publishing Houses bring the gift of inexpensive books to the public. This increases the general knowledge level of the populace, and increases Science output in a city.

Great Library entry

Before the invention of writing, most likely by the Sumerians in the fourth millennium BC, people could only spread information by word of mouth. Writing was originally considered a way of recording socially and economically vital information, such as genealogical tables, codes of law and religious texts, rather than a vehicle for information dissemination. Because writing was seen as an act of recording, not distributing, information in ancient times, only nontheocratic societies, such as Rome and China, had any semblance of publishing beyond letters and scripts, that is, a copying industry for the purpose of supplying a non-religious readership.

With the invention of printing in 6th century AD China, and later improvements in moveable type in the 11th century, the written word, and its possibilities, evolved. Johannes Gutenberg's printing press brought Europe into the fold of modern printing techniques in the mid-15th century. Although one of the chief uses of printing was rapid and inexpensive publishing of religious materials, publishing found its uses in the academic world as well, and, in fact, was one of the critical developments that brought Europe out of the Dark Ages and into the Renaissance. It contributed to a steady rise in literacy for the middle class and the expanded intellectual pursuits for the next 500 years. The publishing industry was slow to grow, but demand for mass-produced, secular texts in philosophy, science and politics increased. Freedom of the press was, for the most part, established in Europe and North America by the 18th century as most attempts to regulate this mode of communication by forces that deemed it dangerous had been defeated. More than anything else, the prevalence of both publicly- and privately-owned publishing houses freed the written word from its mostly religious role and contributed to an explosion of education, literacy and intellectual development.