Originally published in 1950, Harold A. Innis’s Empire and Communications is considered to be one of the classic works in media studies, yet its origins have received little attention. Ambitious in its scope, the book spans five millennia, tracing a path of development around the globe from 2900 BCE to the twentieth century and revealing the cyclical interplay between communications and power structures across space and time. In this new edition, William J. Buxton pays close attention to handwritten glosses that Innis added to a copy of the original edition and the revisions undertaken by his widow, Mary Q. Innis. A new introduction provides a detailed account of how the book emerged from lectures that Innis delivered at Oxford University in 1948, as well as how it related to other presentations Innis made in Britain during the same period. It explores how Innis sought to enrich his analysis by incorporating material related to phenomena such as war, education, religion, culture, geography, and finance. An insightful foreword by Marshall McLuhan is included, as well as bibliographical references and a revised index. By providing a narrative based on extensive notes from Innis, this edition makes Empire and Communications more accessible and contributes to the broad efforts to shape Innis’s legacy.
This classic book, Harold Innis's last, returns to print with a new introduction by James Carey. An elaboration of Innis's earlier theories, Changing Concepts of Time looks at then-new technological changes in communication and considers the different ways in which space and time are perceived. Innis explores military implications of the U.S. constitution, freedom of the press, communication monopolies, culture, and press support of presidential candidates, among other interesting and diverse topics.
First published in 1951, this masterful collection of essays explores the relationship between a society's communication media and that community's ability to maintain control over its development.
This new edition of Harold Innis's essays, published on the occasion of his centenary, assembles his most significant and representative writing. Included are many of Innis's essays on cultural issues and economic development - subjects he explored throughout his life - that have not been readily accessible before.
Harold Innis (1894 - 1952) was a brilliant original thinker and professor of political economy at the University of Toronto. He is known for his seminal works on media, communication theory and Canadian economic history. Innis's great mind exposed the role of media in shaping the culture and the development of civilizations. For instance, he argued that a balance between oral and written forms of communication enabled the flourishing of the Greek civilization in the 5th century BC. He was extremely concerned about the destructive effect of powerful, advertising-driven media, preoccupied with "present-mindedness" and the "continuous, systematic, ruthless destruction of elements of permanence essential to cultural activity." This book features three of his essays: "The Strategy of Culture," "The Military Implications of the American Constitution" and "Roman Law and the British Empire.
Political Economy in the Modern State is Harold Innis’s transitional and, in some respects, his most transformative book. Completed in 1946, it is a collection of fifteen chapters plus a remarkable Preface selected and crafted to address four main themes: the problem of power and peace in the post-War era; the ascent of specialized and mechanized forms of knowledge involving, most particularly, the media, the state, and the academy; the crisis facing civilization and, more generally, the modern penchant for unreflexive short-term thinking in the face of mounting contradictions; and Innis’s growing focus on what would be called media bias. In this new edition, editors Robert E. Babe and Edward A. Comor provide not only a general introduction to Innis’s largely forgotten book but also dedicated introductions to each of its fifteen chapters and a comprehensive index. Together, Babe and Comor demonstrate how Innis’s volume reflects a shift in Innis’s focus, away from analytical relativism towards, instead, a reflexive search for objective truths.
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