The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Matking of Typographic Man

Marsall McLuhan

University of Toronto Press, 1962 - Social Science - 293 pages

Since its first appearance in 1962, the impact of The Gutenberg Galaxy has been felt around the world. It gave us the concept of the global village; that phrase has now been translated, along with the rest of the book, into twelve languages, from Japanese to Serbo-Croat. It helped establish Marshall McLuhan as the original 'media guru.' More than 200,000 copies are in print. The reissue of this landmark book reflects the continuing importance of McLuhan's work for contemporary readers.

What people are saying

Review: The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man

User Review  - Debbie Morrison - Goodreads

I'm enjoying this book a great deal so far. A challenging read, but worth it. Written by a Canadian scholar and published by the University of Toronto Press. Book Description: "Since its first ...

Review: The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man

User Review  - Chiara - Goodreads

Basically what McLuhan argues in his book is that the invention and diffusion of Gutenberg's printing process marked the passage from a balanced kind of linguistic communication - where each sense was ...

Contents

• Prologue: 1
• The Galaxy Reconfigured: 265
• Bibliographic Index: 281

About the author

A poetry professor turned media theorist---or media guru, as some in the press called him at the time---Marshall McLuhan startled television watchers during the 1960's with the notion that the medium they were enthralled by was doing more than transmitting messages---it was the message: Its rapid-fire format, mixing programs and advertisements, conveyed as much as---or more than---any single broadcast element. McLuhan grew up in the prairie country of the Canadian West and studied English at the University of Manitoba and Cambridge University. As television entered a period of huge growth during the 1950's, McLuhan, then a college professor, became interested in advertising. He thought of it as something to be taken seriously as a new culture form, beyond its obvious capability of selling products. That interest led to his increasing speculation about what media did to audiences. In his unpredictable modern poetry classes at the University of Toronto, he spoke more and more of media. The students he taught were the television generation, the first to grow up with the medium. Many were fascinated by McLuhan's provocative observations that a medium of communication radically alters the experience being communicated. A society, he said, is shaped more by the style than by the content of its media. Thus, the linear, sequential style of printing established a linear, sequential style of thinking, in which one thing is considered after another in orderly fashion: it shaped a culture in which (objective) reason predominated and experience was isolated, compartmentalized, and repeatable. In contrast, the low-density images of television, composed of a mosaic of light and dark dots, established a style of response in which it is necessary to unconsciously reconfigure the dots immediately in order to derive meaning from them. It has shaped a culture in which (subjective) emotion predominates and experience is holistic and unrepeatable. Since television (and the other electronic media) transcends space and time, the world is becoming a global village---a community in which distance and isolation are overcome. McLuhan was crisp and assured in his pronouncements and impatient with those who failed to grasp their import. McLuhan's most famous saying, "the medium is the message," was explicated in the first chapter of his most successful book, "Understanding Media," published in 1966 and still in print. It sold very well for a rather abstruse book and brought McLuhan widespread attention in intellectual circles. The media industry responded by seeking his advice and enthusiastically disseminating his ideas in magazines and on television. These ideas caused people to perceive their environment, particularly their media environment, in radically new ways. It was an unsettling experience for some, liberating for others. Though McLuhan produced some useful insights, he was given to wild generalizations and flagrant exaggerations. Some thought him a charlatan, and he always felt himself an outcast at the university, at least partly because of his disdain for print culture and opposition to academic conventions. He never seemed quite as energetic after an operation in 1967 to remove a huge brain tumor, but he continued to work and teach until he suffered a stroke in 1979. He died a year later. Though today his writings are not discussed as much by the general public, his thesis is still considered valid and his ideas have become widely accepted.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Matking of Typographic Man; Volume 39 of Canadian university paperbooks; G - Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series; Mentor books; Routledge paperbacks; Signet Books : Signet non-fiction; Volume 3913 of Signet Books; Signet: Non-fiction
• Author: Marsall McLuhan
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 1962
• ISBN: 0802060412, 9780802060419
• Length: 293 pages
• Subjects: Social Science / Media Studies; Technology & Engineering / Technical & Manufacturing Industries & Trades