Empire and Communications / Edition 1

by Harold A. Innis, Andrew Calabrese

Overview

It's been said that without Harold A. Innis there could have been no Marshall McLuhan. Empire and Communications is one of Innis's most important contributions to the debate about how media influenced the development of consciousness and societies. In this foundational work, he traces humanity's movement from the oral tradition of preliterate cultures to the electronic media of recent times. Along the way, he presents his own influential concepts of oral communication, time and space bias, and monopolies of knowledge. With a new introduction by Alexander John Watson, author of Marginal Man: The Dark Vision of Harold Innis, and a new foreword by series editor Andrew Calabrese, this previously hard-to-obtain book is now readily available again. All communication scholars should have this classic book on their shelves, and it also serves as a great supplementary text in communication and economics courses.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780742555082
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	03/06/2007
Series:	Critical Media Studies: Institutions, Politics, and Culture
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.58(w) x 8.61(h) x 0.87(d)

About the Author

Harold A. Innis was a distinguished political economist who was one of the first to study the history of communication; he also served as a dean at the University of Toronto. In addition to Empire and Communications, his other influential communication works include The Bias of Communication and Changing Concepts of Time. Innis died in Toronto in 1952.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Foreword
Chapter 2 Introduction
Chapter 3 1 Introduction
Chapter 4 2 Egypt
Chapter 5 3 Babylonia
Chapter 6 4 The Oral Tradition and Greek Civilization
Chapter 7 5 The Written Tradition and the Roman Empire
Chapter 8 6 Parchment and Paper
Chapter 9 7 Paper and the Printing Press

What People are Saying About This

Michael Stamm

"Empire and Communications is a canonical work dense with historical and historiographical allusions that are obscure to many contemporary readers, and William J. Buxton's masterful introduction provides invaluable detail about the intellectual currents with which Innis was engaged. Even more importantly, Buxton explains the historical context vital for understanding the book's conception and production, in the process both giving Mary Q. Innis her proper due in shaping its content and illuminating for readers the work's critical politics."

John Durham Peters

"Empire and Communications offers a brisk cinematic montage of the struggles of civilizations to manage space, time, and power. This new edition sparkles with fresh archival materials showcasing Innis's creative process. In the present chaos, we need his critical thinking more than ever. Here, once again, Harold Innis takes flight in the gathering dusk!"

Editorial Reviews

With the benefit of over 50 years of reflection, we can state without opposition that Harold Innis was an important figure in the development of communications studies, and that our students today would do well to read his book, if only to experience the joy of physically grasping and grappling with a difficult publication instead of reading the watered-down version available on Wikipedia.

Journal Of International Communication

This book teaches us to reflect on how the means and processes of communication have been embedded in imperial power.. .. In a career dedicated to explaining empire, Innis discovered communication and blazed an important trail. The time is ripe to reintroduce and welcome this rewarding book, especially to Innis's [U.S.] neighbors. We live in a moment in which the wages of empire weigh heavily on the world.

From The Foreword - Andrew Calabrese

I can think of no better inoculation against the rampant disease of present-mindedness in the contemporary world than a careful reading of [Innis's] classic, Empire and Communications. This book was the foundation on which he built his understanding of the contemporary world, in particular his view of the United States of America, its foreign policy, and its effects on other cultures. At the time of Innis's death in 1952, his perspective on the contemporary world seemed radical and far-fetched. When we read his work anew over a distance of more than fifty years, it seems fresh and, indeed, prophetic.

Alexander John Watson

Innis's writings ... prove understandable and applicable in a variety of modern-day contexts.

Technology and Culture

" Empire and Communications is a canonical work dense with historical and historiographical allusions that are obscure to many contemporary readers, and William J. Buxton’s masterful introduction provides invaluable detail about the intellectual currents with which Innis was engaged. Even more importantly, Buxton explains the historical context vital for understanding the book’s conception and production, in the process both giving Mary Q. Innis her proper due in shaping its content and illuminating for readers the work’s critical politics."

—Michael Stamm, Professor of History, Michigan State University

" Empire and Communications offers a brisk cinematic montage of the struggles of civilizations to manage space, time, and power. This new edition sparkles with fresh archival materials showcasing Innis’s creative process. In the present chaos, we need his critical thinking more than ever. Here, once again, Harold Innis takes flight in the gathering dusk!"

—John Durham Peters, Maria Rosa Menocal Professor of English and of Film and Media Studies, Yale University

From the Publisher