the author aserts that as people, we are what we know and that what we know is what we have learned and are learning. this learning process is influenced primarily by how we learn. he is not refering to the people of this country only, but all people.
early man learned by listening to the elders, the story tellers, the shaman and of course these myths changed from story teller to story teller and evolved as stime went on. the reality of the story was lost in the telling.
when the printing press, with moveable type, was invented by gutenberg,in the early 1400's we learned by reading. myths were memorialized as reality. books written by current authors were in great demand in the usa during the 1700's and the 1800's. people read to learn and the literacy rate in the usa was about 85%. people went to lectures to hear the authors who spoke the words and ideas that they wrote.
the lincoln-douglas debates lasted for up to 4 hours, and people listened and didn't get bored, their attention span was long.
news took a long time to get because of the distances, but when the newspapers reached their destination, the news was detailed by words, that is until photography was invented and the words became less and the pictures became more. the pictures were soon found to be more interesting then the words and the entertainment value of the newspaper became more important then the facts and details.
the remainder of the book is an excellent perspective about how television, especially the news has become the vehicle through which we learn and consequently what we learn, and what we have become as people.
