home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Understanding McLuhan
/
Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
/
pc
/
mcluhan.dxr
/
08237_Field_TCGG T2.txt
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1996-04-10
|
921b
|
15 lines
the empires of the ancient world. The stirrup and the wheel
created unique environments of enormous scope. Technological
environments are not merely passive containers of people but
are active processes that reshape people and other
technologies alike. In our time the sudden shift from the
mechanical technology of the wheel to the technology of
electric circuitry represents one of the major shifts of all
historical time. Printing from movable types created a quite
unexpected new environment—it created the PUBLIC.
Manuscript technology did not have the intensity or power of
extension necessary to create publics on a national scale. What
we have called “nations” in recent centuries did not, and could
not, precede the advent of Gutenberg technology any more
than they can survive the advent of electric circuitry with its
power of totally involving all people in all other people.