Information flowed down these gradients alongside wealth, and information would prove equally important. The invention of efficient new ways of printing by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-fifteenth century magnified the impact of new information flows. Almost thirteen million books were published between 1450 and 1500, and more than three hundred million between 1700 and 1750.5 Books, and the information they stored, ceased to be a rare, pricey luxury and became an everyday acquisition for people with education. And, just as arbitrage profits stimulated European commerce, huge new flows of
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