Papermaking technology was introduced to Central Asia in the 8th century and arrived in Europe around the 12th century. "It changed the historical process of Europe because papermaking technology made knowledge dissemination possible at reduced costs and broke the monopoly of knowledge by nobles and clerks," says professor Xi Huidong.

Gilbank points out that movable type printing was also a revolutionary invention, "The conjunction of those two things was what really moved us into the early modern world," he says.