Synopses & Reviews
A highly original interpretation of the history of Western culture that presents a first in-depth analysis of the cultural impact of communication. Explains how the media have helped bring about economic, political, social, and intellectual progress.
Adopting the currently unfashionable theory that Western culture has improved over time, Perkinson argues that media of communication have played a pivotal role in helping to make things better. He shows how human speech, when it first emerged, enabled people both to understand better the world they inhabited and to construct political, economic, and social arrangements that improved their life chances. With the invention of writing in Sumer, and especially following the invention of the phonetic alphabet in Greece, people were able to devise even better understandings and improved arrangements. The invention of the printing press in the late 15th century led to the creation of the modern nation state, capitalism, an open society, and modern science.
According to this novel interpretation, media of communication encode the existing culture, thereby enabling people to become critical of it in ways not possible before. This criticism uncovers inadequacies, which, when eliminated, result in an improved culture. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of the history of communications and Western civilization.
Review
Overall, the book is a readable historical account of the roots of modern mass media...his discussion of the economic and political impact of the printing press, a subject scholarship often neglects, is interesting. Recommended for academic collections at all levels.Choice
Synopsis
A highly original interpretation of the history of Western culture that presents a first in-depth analysis of the cultural impact of communication. Explains how the media have helped bring about economic, political, social, and intellectual progress.
Synopsis
A novel interpretation of the impact of the media of communication on Western civilization.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [155]-167) and index.
About the Author
HENRY J. PERKINSON is a Professor in the Department of Culture and Communication, New York University.
Table of Contents
Introduction
How Speech Made Things Better
Writing and the Origins of Civilization
Proto-Writing
Alphabetic Writing
Printing and the Origins of Rational Civilization
Printing and the Open Society
Printing and Modern Science
Printing and the Modern State
Printing and Capitalism
Conclusion