Review: Entertaining, Relevant and Inspiring
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 11 3, 2012
Nearly everyone knows the name Johannes Gutenberg. What you don't know about him is what makes this book so fascinating.This book will entertain and inform anyone interested in history. Additionally, author Jeff Jarvis tells Gutenberg's story in terms readily understood by today's entrepreneur and inventor -- capital formation, technology challenge, personnel management, intellectual property protection, contract formation. No stretch of imagination is required on the reader's part, but the author's insight into the parallels is clever indeed.Jarvis' historical research discovered Gutenberg's resourcefulness at raising capital (initially by making hand-held mirrors to sell to religious pilgrims). It also uncovered a six-century old court case wherein Gutenberg lost control of his invention to an unscrupulous investor. These historical facts are largely compiled from the author's extensive reading on the subject. The value-added is his consolidation of the story in a manner that is entertaining, informative, relevant and inspiring to entrepreneurs and history buffs today.Also of interest is the author's comparison of the historical events of the Gutenberg's day to the Eurozone financial crisis today. Excessive municipal debt, forced austerity by bondholders, and religious and secular conflict are all present in Gutenberg's hometown of Mainz, Germany in the 15th century as they are across Europe today. Truly the more things change the more they stay the same.The book wraps up with some comparisons between the social disruptions enabled by Gutenberg's invention and the Internet today. I found these comparisons a bit excessive. Not that the Internet is not a vastly disruptive technology with as-yet unimagined consequences, but that the brilliance and artistry of Johannes Gutenberg, one man working under very difficult conditions, does not compare well to the enormous infrastructure based on thousands of inventions (semiconductors, fiber optics, programming languages, satellite communications, etc.) that is the Internet.I rate this book four stars, with one deducted over the digression into the Internet, which adds little value to what otherwise is an outstanding if short biography.