“Socially, the typographic extension of man brought in nationalism, industrialism, mass markets, and universal literacy and education. For print presented an image of repeatable precision that inspired totally new forms of extending social energies.” — Marshall McLuhan

Producing multiples of printed materials changed the way we think and relate to one another. According to Marshall McLuhan, (I'm simplifying his ideas considerably), we moved from story telling = group, shared knowledge, to print = individual, specialized knowledge. Though much of this power has moved to the web it all started here.