Beyond the Gutenberg Galaxy: Microcomputers and the Emergence of Post-Typographic Culture by Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 323 from the state and local bond issues. Straightening the channel, dredg­ ing it to a depth of 26 feet, deepening it to 30 feet for larger ocean steamships, building adequate wharves and docks, realigning the rail­ road tracks, and constructing terminal facilities all occurred steadily thereafter, providing jobs and bolstering the regional economy. One reads and sees much about the utilization and technical modifications in dredges, loading cranes, rotary railcar dumpers, and cargo-han­ dling equipment associated with these developments. One of the world’s most concentrated areas for food production, processing, and preserving thus found a worldwide outlet. World events, including three wars, led to uncertainty, with a boom in ship­ ping alternating with postwar adjustment. For example, the federal government took full command of the facility for the duration of World War II, using it as a subdepot of the arsenal at Benicia for storing and shipping material to the Pacific theater. Port management was challenged by cargo containerization and the local effect of labormanagement disputes that involved the entire Pacific coast, continuing trade imbalances, and the fluctuating size and price of oil shipments. In addition, feuding developed between rail and truck carriers to and from the port. The resulting hard times of the 1960s and early 1970s, including deficit operations, have recently been reversed and pros­ perity restored. Emphasis is placed on the role of contemporary lead­ ers in this change. To repeat, this account can only be described as a story of the triumph of technology reinforced by investment capital and manage­ ment, profusely illustrated with a half-dozen maps and charts and 275 photographs and illustrations. W. Turrentine Jackson Dr. Jackson is professor of history, emeritus, at the University of California, Davis. He is a Fellow of the California Historical Society and past president of the Western History Association. His books include Treasure Hill (1963), Wagon Roads West (1965), and The Enterprising Scot (1968). Beyond the Gutenberg Galaxy: Microcomputers and the Emergence of PostTypographic Culture. By Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr. New York: Teachers College Press, 1986. Pp. xi+ 116; notes, bibliography, index. $8.95 (paper). The thesis and the limitations of Beyond the Gutenberg Galaxy can be gathered from the following: “This [book’s] argument is similar to McLuhan’s in The Gutenberg Galaxy: that modern global culture is in the process of undergoing an electronically based communications revolution whose only precedent was the typographic revolution of the fifteenth century. Unlike McLuhan, however, this work maintains that this revolution will not be based so much in media such as tele­ 324 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE vision, print, or the movies, but instead in the possibilities provided by the emergence and widespread availability of the new computer and microcomputer technology” (p. 3). With a straightforward and generally optimistic view of our current era of technological change, Eugene Provenzo elaborates his thesis in eight brief chapters, touching on the information society, “telematics” (the combination ofcomputers and telecommunications systems), data bases, microcomputers and education, and artificial intelligence. The influence of McLuhan is apparent in every chapter. Historians will certainly be dissatisfied with this book. They are often dissatisfied with McLuhan himself for his polemical treatment of the history of technology and ideas, and Beyond the Gutenberg Galaxy is a modest imitation of McLuhan’s own sweeping analyses. McLuhan’s work was filled with historical analogies, often quite controversial but always thought-provoking. Provenzo offers little beyond his one his­ torical analogy, the invention of the printing press, and he does not explore this analogy in detail. There are also predictable references to the Luddites, to the dystopians George Orwell, Samuel Butler, and Aldous Huxley, and to such writers as Jacques Ellul and Daniel Bell on the possibilities and dangers of our technological future. In short, a skeptical reader will not find any new arguments or evidence to help assess the importance of the computer as a new technology of information. However, to be fair, the book is not written to convince scholars; it is rather an introduction, suitable for use in an introductory class on technology and culture. Provenzo’s one his­ torical parallel, although obvious, is not inappropriate. The computer...