The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographical Man

The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographical Man, by Marshall McLuhan (Toronto 1962), is a brilliantly eclectic analysis in which McLuhan claims that print technology has modified the form of our perception, shifting and concentrating perceptual emphasis from the ear to the eye, with tremendous consequences for individuals and cultures. McLuhan describes the condition of "typographic man" at the historic moment when electronic media met with print media, an encounter McLuhan studies in his next major work, Understanding Media (1964). The Gutenberg Galaxy established McLuhan as one of the Western world's most influential and controversial writers in the redefined field of communications; the implications of his often-quoted watchwords, phrases and syntheses continue to fascinate and disturb the post-modern imagination. The Gutenberg Galaxy has been translated into French (Paris, Montréal, 1967), as La Galaxie Gutenberg: la genèse de l'homme typographique, by Jean Paré.