Books | Our World in Data Our World in Data Browse by topic Data Latest Resources About Subscribe Donate Books Books have been at the center of science and the arts for centuries. How has the production and sales of books changed over time? By Max Roser and Hannah Ritchie Cite this workReuse this work Introduction Charts Books, manuscripts, and written communication have played a crucial role in the spread of ideas and the development of culture. Historically, books were a luxury commodity: only affordable to the most wealthy. Studying the production and sales of books over time can therefore give us an idea for how income and wealth have changed over the last centuries. We can also look at trends, beyond income and education, to understand how religion, culture, and other context-specific factors might influence book publications and sales. Writing has been key in the generation and communication of ideas. Even prior to the invention of the first printing press by Gutenberg, around 1440, societies communicated in written form using tablets, scrolls, sheets of papyrus, and other materials. Finally, books also provide a good proxy for literacy rates within a population. Literacy is a crucial indicator of human development and education. On this page, you can find historical data and visualizations relating to manuscript and book production. The crucial event that changed the history of book production was the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg around 1440.1 But this data also looks at the history of manuscripts that preceded printed books.2 Related topics Literacy Global Education Technological Change Key Charts on Books See all charts on this topicNumber of new book titles published per million people Annual per capita consumption of books Manuscript production per century, 6th to 15th century Production of printed books per half century Chart 1 of 4 Featured Data on Books Endnotes Eltjo Buringh and Jan Luiten Van Zanden (2009) – Charting the “Rise of the West”: Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe, a Long-Term Perspective from the Sixth through Eighteenth Centuries. In The Journal of Economic History The Journal of Economic History Vol. 69, No. 2 (Jun., 2009), pp. 409-445. Online here. Particularly interesting is the transition from manuscripts to books – book production became more efficient, prices decreased and the consumption of books increased. Cite this work Our articles and data visualizations rely on work from many different people and organizations. When citing this topic page, please also cite the underlying data sources. This topic page can be cited as: Max Roser and Hannah Ritchie (2023) - “Books” Published online at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/books' [Online Resource] BibTeX citation @article{owid-books, author = {Max Roser and Hannah Ritchie}, title = {Books}, journal = {Our World in Data}, year = {2023}, note = {https://ourworldindata.org/books} } Reuse this work freely All visualizations, data, and articles produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited. The data produced by third parties and made available by Our World in Data is subject to the license terms from the original third-party authors. We will always indicate the original source of the data in our documentation, so you should always check the license of any such third-party data before use and redistribution. All of our charts can be embedded in any site. Our World in Data is free and accessible for everyone. Help us do this work by making a donation. Donate now Our World in Data is a project of Global Change Data Lab, a nonprofit based in the UK (Reg. Charity No. 1186433). Our charts, articles, and data are licensed under CC BY, unless stated otherwise. The source code for our tools and software is made publicly available for transparency and educational reference under a custom license. Re-use requires permission. Third-party materials, including some charts and data, are subject to third-party licenses. See our FAQs for more details. Explore Topics Data Data Insights Resources Latest SDG Tracker Teaching with OWID About About us Organization Funding Team Jobs FAQs RSS Feeds Research & Writing Data Insights Follow us Privacy policy Cookie notice Legal disclaimer Grapher license Send feedback