Supposedly

"The Nature of the Book concentrates for the most part on one country, England, and in particular on its capital city, London...it may seem perverse to address questions of the identity and consequences of print by examining any one location, when the very essence of print, supposedly, is that it enables human beings to transcend their immediate circumstances and communicate reliably with others in different times and places."

-Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making, p. 40