The Essential McLuhan | Eric McLuhan

Marshall McLuhan's insights are fresher and more applicable today than when he first announced them to a startled world. A whole new generation is turning to his work to understand a global village made real by the information superhighway and the overwhelming challenge of electronic transformation.“ Before anyone could perceive the electric form of the information revolution, McLuhan was publishing brilliant explanations of the perceptual changes being experienced by the users of mass media. He seemed futuristic to some and an enemy of print and literacy to others. He was, in reality, a deeply literate man of astonishing prescience. Tom Wolfe suggested aloud that McLuhan's work was as important culturally as that of Darwin or Freud. Agreement and scoffing ensued. Increasingly Wolfe's wonder seems justified. Here in one volume, are McLuhan's key ideas, drawn from his books, articles, correspondence, and published speeches. This book is the essential archive of his constantly surprising vision.

About the Author

Marshall McLuhan (1911 — 1980) was a pioneer Canadian theorist and educator in the fields of communication and media studies. He taught at the University of Toronto from 1946 to 1979 and became popular for his aphorism ""the medium is the message,"" which summarized his view of the media's potent influence on shaping culture and styles of thinking. His major writings include The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), Understanding Media (1964), and The Medium Is the Message (1967).

About the Editors

Eric McLuhan, Ph.D., is the author of Laws of Media and The City as Classroom (both with Marshall McLuhan) and a forthcoming book on James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. He has taught at the University of Toronto, York University, Wisconsin State University, and other colleges.

Frank Zingrone, Ph.D., is professor of communication at York University in Toronto. He has also taught at MIT and SUNY (Buffalo). He is an information scientist, poet, former associate editor of the Canadian Journal of Communication and a widely published media investigator.