The Gutenberg Galaxy

Because this book was first published in 1962, you might be surprised to learn that it has a lot to tell us about communication in the Digital Age.

McLuhan’s thesis is that, just as moving from a world dominated by oral communication to a world dominated by print changed human cognition, the movement to electronic communication–which, in 1962, primarily meant television–was actively rewiring human cognition.

Reading The Guttenberg Galaxy causes me to marvel at how thoroughly McLuhan understood that a technology that was then only in its infancy was going to change the way people think in profound, sometimes unsettling… show more.