Other Asian innovations, like paper and gunpowder, have a clear record of dissemination to Europe, with artifacts and record-keeping that trace their travel westward along routes of trade and conquest. Printing doesn’t have that kind of paper trail, says Valerie Hansen, a professor of Chinese history at Yale University. There is no evidence that European printers saw the fruits of Asian printing, like money or pamphlets, and then tried to reverse engineer the processes that made them—though it’s plausible, given increasing contact between east and west in the 13th and 14th centuries.
A close look at both printing technologies has also revealed more differences than similarities: different inks (oil-based in
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