ABSTRACT
During the third quarter of this century, North American communications theory-or at least the most interesting part of it-could have been described by an arc running from Harold Innis to Marshall McLuhan. “It would be more impressive,” as Oscar Wilde said while staring up at Niagara Falls, “if it ran the other way.” Innis’s work, despite its maddeningly obscure, opaque and elliptical character, is the great achievement in communications on this continent. In The Bias of Communication, Empire and Communication, Changing Concepts of Time and in the essays on books on the staples that dominated the Canadian economy, Innis demonstrated a natural depth, excess, and complexity, a sense of paradox and reversal that provides permanent riddles rather than easy formulas. His texts continue to yield because they combine, along with studied obscurity, a gift for pungent aphorism, unexpected juxtaposition, and sudden illumination. Opening his books is like reengaging an extended conversation: they are not merely things to read but things to think with.
