Why the International Kindle Will Change the Book As We Know It

Most literate people are familiar with at least some of the consequences of the print revolution of the 15th century, but far fewer are as aware of the much more profound change that occurred when rolls were replaced by codices-pages bound between covers—in the late Roman period. Think of the scattered, tattered remainders of the Dead Sea Scrolls - each text is isolated and vulnerable. Codices were originally mini-libraries, much more useful and easy than storing masses of loose individual texts.

In "Christianity and the Transformation of the Book" (2007), Anthony Grafton and Megan Williams argue that the codex was one of the keys to the nascent power of Christianity in the late Roman period: "The rise of the codex, with its compact proportions, greatly intensified the physical—as well as the symbolic—concentration of cultural power that a sizable library embodied." The Gospels became both a single object and a small library. The simple act of binding involved the bringing together of voices and interests, a move from having the Lamentations of Jeremiah and histories of the Kings of Israel and the laws of Moses to having the Bible which contains them all.

WSJ.com