The Gutenberg Parenthesis

The Age of Print and Its Lessons for the Age of the Internet

De: Professor Jeff Jarvis

Narrado por: Professor Jeff Jarvis

Bloomsbury presents The Gutenberg Parenthesis written and read by Jeff Jarvis.

PROSE AWARDS MEDIA ADN CULTURAL STUDIES FINALIST 2024

The Gutenberg Parenthesis traces the epoch of print from its fateful beginnings to our digital present – and draws out lessons for the age to come.

The age of print is a grand exception in history. For five centuries it fostered what some call print culture – a worldview shaped by the completeness, permanence, and authority of the printed word. As a technology, print at its birth was as disruptive as the digital migration of today. Now, as the internet ushers us past print culture, journalist Jeff Jarvis offers important lessons from the era we leave behind.

To understand our transition out of the Gutenberg Age, Jarvis first examines the transition into it. Tracking Western industrialized print to its origins, he explores its invention, spread, and evolution, as well as the bureaucracy and censorship that followed. He also reveals how print gave rise to the idea of the mass – mass media, mass market, mass culture, mass politics, and so on – that came to dominate the public sphere.

What can we glean 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? Brimming with broader implications for today’s debates over communication, authorship, and ownership, Jarvis’ exploration of print on a grand scale is also a complex, compelling history of technology and power.

2024, Choice Outstanding Academic Title, Winner

©2023 Jeff Jarvis (P)2023 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

A vision of the future as seen in a rearview mirror

Listening to this book gave me a great appreciation for the printed word and a contextual understanding of disruption in communications technology. Well written, well performed, and a fascinating read all the way through.

The history of the book.

After discussing the history of the printed word from Gutenberg to the internet, the author gives us a lot to think about our future. A special thanks for our to Jeff for reading his own book. I'm sure that I'd be reading in his voice anyway.

Good Book, Bad Politics

A very digestible book presenting the history of print media marred by extremely one-sided politics.

Complex and balanced analysis of ideas

Jarvis is carefully considered in his idea making. the chapter on masses alone is worth the admission price of this remarkable book.

Decent history lesson but calls for censorship

Really interesting history lessons and context around the birth of printing and all it wrought. Depressing and annoying that it took cheap shots politically, and called for censorship. “Censorship was bad in the past, but let’s do more mow in our digital future”. Non-sequitur.