Land of the Print, Home of the Literate

After finishing chapter three of Amusing Ourselves to Death , I cannot help but gawk at the amount of copies that books such as Common Sense by Thomas Paine were printed- around hundreds of thousands! Compared to the current population, millions of copies would be needed to even get on the same level as Common Sense. Until now, I would have never imagined that people living in colonies in early America, especially the poor, would even be interested in reading novels at such a high rate. The fact that America was built by literate and very intellectual people, especially the founding fathers, makes me feel patriotic. I know it sounds silly to be patriotic about something that happened centuries ago, but how many people in different countries can say that even poor people had thousands of books to choose from. My guess? Not that many. Before I get even more carried away, it is important to know that print was the only form of communication at that time (except for talk, obviously) so it makes sense that with the aid of the printing press and imports from England there will be a grand amount of books and newspapers that were almost necessary in reading in order to partake in public discussions. Nonetheless, I find it very interesting and cool that from the beginning modern America was built by people who were intellectual. Unfortunately, now it seems that America's own unintelligent and foolish people will be the ones that will bring it down.