There is nothing really amiss about this brief curiosity from 1937: van Loon offers a quick history of movable type, suggesting that there was quite a bit more to the story of Gutenberg than our middle school education told us. Van Loon's contention is that Gutenberg was not singularly responsible for his famed invention--and perhaps stole it from a Dutchman. Moreover, several civilizations had versions of movable type centuries before the German inventor. 

Instead, he argues, a number of circumstances (the invention and geographic manufacture of paper, economic need, and even the Phoenician alphabet) brought together a moment that afforded the necessity for a modern printing press. 

True enough. Though it almost seems, at one level, that van Loon, with less than verified evidence,  is compromising the fame of a certain German inventor at the time of this writing, Europe in 1937. He says that he is fully aware of ironic nationalist tendencies, and that undoubtably similar motivations might work to elevate anyone to hero status, as well. 

But his theme is quite a bit larger than a simple history, of course. Watching over his shoulder at the mobilizing German armies, he makes it clear by the end what he is thinking, in all caps:

"The future happiness of the human race depends upon just one thing - international cooperation." And thus, the global history of the invention of printing is an argument against a coming war.

 

Worth the read, if for nothing else, this political aim and the fascinating assemblage of historical pieces which brought us to print.