The Gutenberg Parenthesis: The Age of Print and Its Lessons for the Age of the Internet // Jeff Jarvis

288 pages, 2023, Bloomsbury

#print #gutenberg #history #digitalization

The five-century-long age of print was a grand exception in history. It gave rise to a worldview that some call print culture – shaped according to the completeness, permanence, materiality, authorship, and authority of the printed word. As print and its influence on every aspect of life is now being eclipsed by new technologies – the internet and data – the contrast between these eras gives us the opportunity to better recognize how print has shaped us.  

To help us understand our transition out of the Gutenberg Age, Jeff Jarvis examines the transition into it. This includes the history of print, its invention and spread; innovations with print, including the novel, the essay, and the newspaper; and the impact of print, leading to the growth of bureaucracy, censorship, and nations.

What can we learn from the captivating, profound, and challenging history of our devotion to print? Could it be that we are returning to a time before mass media, to a society built on conversation, and that we are relearning how to hold that conversation with ourselves? The Gutenberg Parenthesis examines print's age on a grand scale and challenges readers to absorb its lessons as we design the internet and society of our future.