Marginal Man.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This book is an extraordinary work of scholarship in its own right, as well as an essential companion to the work of its subject, one of Canada's most important minds.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Watson (an independent scholar) offers a detailed biography of Canadian economic historian Harold Innis, a relatively marginal figure in communication studies noted for his influence on his more accomplished University of Toronto colleague, Marshall McLuhan. Working from archival documents, interviews with family members and former colleagues, and Innis's own published and unpublished writings, the author traces the events of Innis's life chronologically and connects them to his intellectual interests and psychological afflictions, notably depression. The first half of the book provides a comprehensive account of Innis's family life, education, and early career (1894-1939). The second covers Innis's remaining years (1940-52), during which he formulated the key ideological trajectories with which he and McLuhan are associated (e.g., media and empire, aural/oral traditions, unitary dialectic). Watson offers a useful demonstration of how emerging theory is rooted in historical context, but the book is ultimately pedestrian in its analysis. Notes and bibliography are likewise thin for a work that attempts to engage issues of intellectual history and theoretical indebtedness. This book will likely appeal to readers interested in Canadian economic and communication history. Summing Up: Optional. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers. P. A. Fulfs University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown