In the Introduction to The Future of the Book, Nunberg discusses bibliophiles and their visionary counterparts alike, with what he calls their "conflicting fetishisms that lead both sides to adopt a particularily concrete and implacable variety of technological determinism" (9). This all or nothing approach, Nunberg argues, not only assumes "that the future of discourse hinges entirely on the artifacts that mediate it, but that artifacts and hence cultural epochs can only supersede one another" (9).
With these observations as context, he introduces the essayists of the anthology in a point-and-counterpoint medley of approaches that concludes with his own observation that "the category of 'the book' is itself the result of a fortuitous concourse of institutions, genre, and technologies" (19). In the debate he sees some certitudes -- "the introduction of new technologies will be accompanied by a dispersion of the cultural and communicative functions we associate with the book" (19). As he explains, no "essential reason" demands that novels and parts catalogs be rendered in the same artifact or that poetry and cookbooks be sold in the same retail outlets. For Nunberg, the "contingency of the present" does not lead to a deterministic future as the visionaries would have it for "when everthing is possible, nothing is foregone" (20).
Contents of The Future of the Book include the following: