Print history / Planet Pictures (Firm).

A single issue of The New York Times is said to contain more information than could be learned in a lifetime by a person living in the 15th century. This program traces the development of books, newspapers, and magazines in the Western world, from the invention of the printing press, metal type, paper, and oil-based ink to the present day. Experts from the Smithsonian Institution, Harvard University Press, MIT, and The New York Times discuss the effect of print technology on the spread of Martin Luther's doctrines and the Reformation; printing in colonial America; advances stimulated by the Industrial Revolution, the Civil War, and the Trans-Continental Railroad; Mergenthaler's Linotype machine; Yellow Journalism; and the impact of Time magazine. Permanence and portability, in combination with affordability and ease of replication, have made the printed word a vital form of mass communication that is unlikely to be replaced even in the age of the Internet.

Title from distributor's description.