ABSTRACT
Throughout the past century, the invention of printing has ranked, in the eyes of Chinese scholars, as one of their country’s greatest contributions to the history of humankind. The view of the present doyen of Chinese book history, Zhang Xiumin, could have been expressed by any scholar and bibliophile in China over the past four generations: “As everyone knows, our country not only invented the art of paper making but also invented the art of printing, woodblock as well as moveable-type, and thereby has m ade a very im portant contribution to the development of world culture.”1
