Gutenberg vs Cai Lun: what carries the word?

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GUTENBERG vs CAI LUN go head to head — and every jab is rooted in real history.

GUTENBERG

My movable type multiplied a single book into thousands; I gave the word wings.

CAI LUN

Wings need a body, friend—before your press, I gave the world a surface cheap enough to write upon at all.

GUTENBERG

Yet a scribe still crawled letter by letter; I made the printed page a flood no monastery could dam.

CAI LUN

Fourteen centuries earlier I made the flood possible—you merely opened the gate I had already built.

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