Uncertainties about the relation of the present to the past reflect our inability to order coherently the accelerating accumulation of information about the past within a conception of temporal development which originated with the permanence of printed books and records. The orally transmitted memory of events was achronic; succeeding scribal culture, aware of the decay and loss of manuscripts, correspondingly believed in historical decline and in catastrophic and cyclical theories of historical change. The appearance of printed books and records gave rise to uniform time scales, transformed the sense of temporal location, fostered belief in the straight-line direction of history leading to the revolution of the "Present," but also has concealed from historians the extent to which their conceptions and problems reflect a cumulative print-made culture.