Essential McLuhan brings together in one concise volume key writings by Marshall McLuhan, the hugely influential guru of the mass media. Today, in a communications environment transformed by the rapid spread of electronic media, McLuhan's insights are fresher and more applicable today than when he first announced them to a startled world in the 1960s. A whole new generation is turning to his work to understand a global village made real by the coming of the information superhighway.
This comprehensive collection includes extracts from McLuhan's famous books Understanding Media and The Gutenberg Galaxy, as well as selections from his other books, articles, correspondence, interviews and published speeches. There is also a 'sourcebook' of key quotations drawn from the whole body of McLuhan's work, and a full bibliography of writings by and about McLuhan.
Herbert Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media theory. He studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of Cambridge. He began his teaching career as a professor of English at several universities in the United States and Canada before moving to the University of Toronto in 1946, where he remained for the rest of his life. He is known as the "father of media studies". McLuhan coined the expression "the medium is the message" in the first chapter in his Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man and the term global village. He predicted the World Wide Web almost 30 years before it was invented. He was a fixture in media discourse in the late 1960s, though his influence began to wane in the early 1970s. In the years following his death, he continued to be a controversial figure in academic circles. However, with the arrival of the Internet and the World Wide Web, interest was renewed in his work and perspectives.