[PEN-L:1433] Re: Re: Re: Re: Enlightenment Insight, part two

[Brad De Long <delong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>At 09:23 AM 12/9/98 -0800, Brad DeLong wrote:
>>
>>Yes. One of the great potential turning points in world history is the
>>arrival of Martin Luther in 1520--rather than 50 years earlier (before the
>>widespread distribution of printing, and thus before the possibility of
>>spreading the Protestant message widely enough to escape the standard
>>anti-heresy procedures of the European church) or fifty years later (by
>>which time the church had realized what printing could do to it--and had
>>established procedures for controlling what was printed).
>
>
>Hmmm...   a Great Coincidence concept of history?  How about there being
>many Luthers prior to 1520, but all of them forgotten because their ideas
>did not have a chance to thrive?

About one every couple of centuries. It depends how long you think the
window between the invention of printing and the imposition of effective
ideological control (the "nihil obstat") was...


Brad