Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

James II could have defeated William of Orange. The path of major institutional change was, as usual, no less contingent than the outcome of other politicalconflicts. This was so even if the specific path of institutional drift that created the broad coalition opposed to absolutism and the critical juncture of Atlantic trading opportunities stacked the cards against the Stuarts. In this instance, therefore, contingency and a broad coalition were deciding factors underpinning the emergence of pluralism and inclusive institutions.

8.

N OT ON O UR T URF: B ARRIERS TO D EVELOPMENT
N O P RINTING A LLOWED
    I N 1445 IN THE G ERMAN city of Mainz, Johannes Gutenberg unveiled an innovation with profound consequences for subsequent economic history: a printing press based on movable type. Until then, books either had to be hand-copied by scribes, a very slow and laborious process, or they were block-printed with specific pieces of wood cut for printing each page. Books were few and far between, and very expensive. After Gutenberg’s invention, things began to change. Books were printed and became more readily available. Without this innovation, mass literacy and education would have been impossible.
    In Western Europe, the importance of the printing press was quickly recognized. In 1460 there was already a printing press across the border, in Strasbourg, France. By the late 1460s the technology had spread throughout Italy, with presses in Rome and Venice, soon followed by Florence, Milan, and Turin. By 1476 William Caxton had set up a printing press in London, and two years later there was one in Oxford. During the same period, printing spread throughout the Low Countries, into Spain, and even into Eastern Europe, with a press opening in Budapest in 1473 and in Cracow a year later.
    Not everyone saw printing as a desirable innovation. As early as 1485 the Ottoman sultan Bayezid II issued an edict that Muslims were expressly forbidden from printing in Arabic. This rule was further reinforced by Sultan Selim I in 1515. It was not until 1727 that the firstprinting press was allowed in the Ottoman lands. Then Sultan Ahmed III issued a decree granting İbrahim Müteferrika permission to set up a press. Even this belated step was hedged with restraints. Though the decree noted “the fortunate day this Western technique will be unveiled like a bride and will not again be hidden,” Müteferrika’s printing was going to be closely monitored. The decree stated:
    so that the printed books will be free from printing mistakes, the wise, respected and meritorious religious scholars specializing in Islamic Law, the excellent Kadi of Istanbul, Mevlana İshak, and Selaniki’s Kadi, Mevlana Sahib, and Galata’s Kadi, Mevlana Asad, may their merits be increased, and from the illustrious religious orders, the pillar of the righteous religious scholars, the Sheykh of the Kasim Paşa Mevlevihane, Mevlana Musa, may his wisdom and knowledge increase, will oversee the proofreading.
    Müteferrika was allowed to set up a printing press, but whatever he printed had to be vetted by a panel of three religious and legal scholars, the Kadis. Maybe the wisdom and knowledge of the Kadis, like everybody else’s, would have increased much faster had the printing press been more readily available. But that was not to be, even after Müteferrika was given permission to set up his press.
    Not surprisingly Müteferrika printed few books in the end, only seventeen between 1729, when the press began to operate, and 1743, when he stopped working. His family tried to continue the tradition, but they managed to print only another seven books by the time they finally gave up in 1797. Outside of the core of the Ottoman Empire in Turkey, printing lagged even further behind. In Egypt, for instance, the first printing press was set up only in 1798, by Frenchmen who were part of the abortive attempt by Napoleon Bonaparte to capture the country. Until well into the second half of the nineteenth century, book production in the Ottoman Empire was still primarily undertaken by scribes hand-copying existing books. In the early eighteenthcentury, there were reputed to be eighty thousand such scribes active in Istanbul.
    This opposition to the printing press had the obvious consequences for literacy, education, and economic success. In 1800 probably only 2 to 3 percent of the citizens of the Ottoman Empire were literate, compared with 60 percent of adult males and 40 percent