In September of 1960, Marshall McLuhan began conversations with an editor at UTP about a manuscript he was working on. In an Author Information Sheet filled out by 
McLuhan he described this piece of work: “To explain the nature and effects of phonetic writing and printing in the shaping of the Western world. In the electronic age, the Western world faces the possibility of complete change of all characteristics accruing from the technology of literacy.” This manuscript and description led to The Gutenberg Galaxy published in 1962. What follows in the files kept at UTP is a flurry of reviews from countless publications across a wide range disciplines, and in a variety of languages from all around the world, including a translated transcript from a Flemish radio station. The Director of UTP at the time, in a correspondence to a colleague, wrote that the manuscript was “at once exciting, wild, controversial…a book that holds the possibilities of being one of the most talked-about and worthwhile works we have published in a long while.” 50 years later, we would tend to agree with him. The Gutenberg Galaxy popularized the term ‘global village,’ and went on to win a Governor-General’s prize, but more than that, it established McLuhan as a leader in his field, the man to go to for all things related to media theory.
In the 1960s when The Gutenberg Galaxy was just published reviews abounded, calling McLuhan a genius for his mosaic thesis on typography. The publication Educational Leadership wrote a piece about the importance of Marshall McLuhan “He is like a thunderclap; you cannot overlook him once you have been nearby…Why should we pay attention to such a book? For one thing – and perhaps this is enough to say – it exists. It has happened, and it is not possible to act as if it has not.” McLuhan was a game-changer. Ian Sowton said in Edge “…not so much a book that you read as a book which reads you.” McLuhan was no fad; writing four more books in the next decade, including the 1964 Understanding Media which explored the often-quoted “the medium is the message.”
Today, in the age of the Internet, 100 years after McLuhan’s birth, and 50 years since the publication of Gutenberg Galaxy, McLuhan is as relevant as ever. As festivities are ongoing worldwide for his centennial, former colleagues, students, and experts are reflecting on McLuhan’s importance. B.W. Powe a former student of McLuhan’s, was quoted in an article in the Toronto Star, saying that “McLuhan is still ahead of us.” Wired named McLuhan their patron saint. Some say that McLuhan predicted the Internet 20 years before it came into existence when he “envisioned a computer as a research and communication device, perhaps even an ‘extension of consciousness’ which would do the work of a television, library, encyclopedia and personalized shopping plaza.” (McLuhan’s legacy is alive and tweeting)
So grab a copy of Gutenberg Galaxy, or wait until next month for the new edition , join in the McLuhan100 festivities, and learn about the man who made sense of our contemporary world before it even happened.
