挑战与应对:明代出版业的发展

Challenges and Responses: Development of Publishing Industry in the Ming Dynasty

中国出版业的发展历史长达三千多年,其间经历了三次发展高潮。秦汉时期,中央集权统一制度的确立,为出版业的发展提供了基础。唐宋时期士人阶层的出现,印刷技术和造纸技术的进步,推动了书籍出版业的大众化。晚明时期的中国社会转型,开启了"中国早期近代化"的历程,迎来了中国出版业的空前繁荣。与此同时,为应对社会需求和文化需求对出版业提出的多方面挑战,明代出版人从印刷出版技术、作者主体、行销手段等方面积极应对,出现了一批卓越的出版人、大型的出版机构,形成了出版业的中心,取得了辉煌的成就,但也存在明显的局限。

China's publishing industry has a long history of more than three thousand years with three climaxes. During the Qin and Han Dynasties, the establishment of the feudal centralized system laid a foundation for the development of publishing industry. The emergence of the scholar class,as well as the progress of printing and papermaking technologies during the Tang and Song Dynasties,had promoted book publishing for the ordinary people. The transformation of Chinese society in the late Ming Dynasty ushered China into early modernization,and the country's publishing industry into unprecedented prosperity. In the meanwhile,social changes and cultural development posed a variety of challenges to the publishing industry. In response,the publishers in the Ming Dynasty worked out a package of solutions in such aspects as printing and publishing technologies,author-subject and marketing approaches. Consequently,a host of excellent publishers and large publishing houses came into being,publishing centers were formed,and the publishing industry was in glory,in spite of some obvious limitations.