Harold A. Innis: Empire & Communications (1950/1986)

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 influence the development of consciousness and societies. In this seminal text, 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.

Keywords and phrases
Babylonia, monopoly of knowledge, papyrus, Hittites, Egypt, Byzantine empire, Persian empire, Sumerian, oral tradition, Hyksos, Dionysus, Assyrian, Kassites, Orphism, monasticism, Roman law, Mitanni, Werner Jaeger, Aramaic, Athens

Edited by Dave Godfrey
Publisher Press Porcépic, 1986
ISBN 0888782446, 9780888782441
Length 184 pages

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