ABSTRACT
At some point in the early morning of the last day of 1980, Marshall McLuhan died peacefully in his bed in Toronto, Canada. Fascinated with electronic media, which compressed space and time into space-time, he began to think of a world soul. The young Canadian became fascinated with television. After 1968, a number of critics and communicators believed that despite his sudden fame and peppery puns, the Canadian Guru had misread history and even misunderstood the medium where he seemed most brilliant—television. McLuhan’s great contribution was in foreseeing cultural upheavals. However outrageous or irresponsible his books may have seemed three decades ago, they were remarkably accurate—the people live in a McLuhanesque world. In addition to Marchand’s book, McLuhan’s daughter Stephanie has collected six hours of videotape, with commentary by Tom Wolfe.
