German Museum of Books and Writing

The broadest single timeline on this list, run by the German National Library. Its permanent exhibition, Signs, Books, Networks: From Cuneiform to Binary Code, covers some 5,000 years of media history in one route, from the first written marks through movable type to the digital network age. That sweep makes it the best place to see printing as one chapter in a longer story rather than the whole of it. It pairs naturally with the Museum of the Printing Arts across the city, where the machinery is still running.