Harold A. Innis

Originally published in 1950, Harold A. Innis’s Empire and Communications is considered to be one of the classic works in media studies, yet its origins have received little attention. Ambitious in its scope, the book spans five millennia, tracing a path of development around the globe from 2900 BCE to the twentieth century and revealing the cyclical interplay between communications and power structures across space and time. In this new edition, William J. Buxton pays close attention to handwritten glosses that Innis added to a copy of the original edition and the revisions undertaken by his widow, Mary Q. Innis. A new introduction provides a detailed account of how the book emerged from lectures that Innis delivered at Oxford University in 1948, as well as how it related to other presentations Innis made in Britain during the same period. It explores how Innis sought to enrich his analysis by incorporating material related to phenomena such as war, education, religion, culture, geography, and finance. An insightful foreword by Marshall McLuhan is included, as well as bibliographical references and a revised index. By providing a narrative based on extensive notes from Innis, this edition makes Empire and Communications more accessible and contributes to the broad efforts to shape Innis’s legacy.

Political Economy in the Modern State is Harold Innis’s transitional and, in some respects, his most transformative book. Completed in 1946, it is a collection of fifteen chapters plus a remarkable Preface selected and crafted to address four main themes: the problem of power and peace in the post-War era; the ascent of specialized and mechanized forms of knowledge involving, most particularly, the media, the state, and the academy; the crisis facing civilization and, more generally, the modern penchant for unreflexive short-term thinking in the face of mounting contradictions; and Innis’s growing focus on what would be called media bias. In this new edition, editors Robert E. Babe and Edward A. Comor provide not only a general introduction to Innis’s largely forgotten book but also dedicated introductions to each of its fifteen chapters and a comprehensive index. Together, Babe and Comor demonstrate how Innis’s volume reflects a shift in Innis’s focus, away from analytical relativism towards, instead, a reflexive search for objective truths.

Political Economy in the Modern State is Harold Innis’s transitional and, in some respects, his most transformative book. Completed in 1946, it is a collection of fifteen chapters plus a remarkable Preface selected and crafted to address four main themes: the problem of power and peace in the post-War era; the ascent of specialized and mechanized forms of knowledge involving, most particularly, the media, the state, and the academy; the crisis facing civilization and, more generally, the modern penchant for unreflexive short-term thinking in the face of mounting contradictions; and Innis’s growing focus on what would be called media bias. In this new edition, editors Robert E. Babe and Edward A. Comor provide not only a general introduction to Innis’s largely forgotten book but also dedicated introductions to each of its fifteen chapters and a comprehensive index. Together, Babe and Comor demonstrate how Innis’s volume reflects a shift in Innis’s focus, away from analytical relativism towards, instead, a reflexive search for objective truths.

Harold A. Innis helped to found the field of Canadian economic history. He is best known for the "staples thesis" which dominated the discourse of Canadian economic history for decades. This volume collects Innis’ published and unpublished essays on economic history, from 1929 to 1952, thereby charting the development of the arguments and ideas found in his books The Fur Trade in Canada and The Cod Fisheries. These essays capture Innis’ ever evolving views on the practices and uses of economic history as well as Canadian economic history. The new introduction written by prominent historian Matthew Evenden provides a fresh take on Innis life’s work and situates the essays in the context of his scholarship as well as recent studies on Canadian economic history. This volume offers invaluable insight into one of Canada’s most original thinkers and his interpretation of our nation’s history.

One of the most influential books ever published in Canada, Harold A. Innis's The Bias of Communication has played a major part in reshaping our understanding of history, communication, and media theory. First published in 1951, this masterful collection of essays explores the relationship between a society's communication media and that community's ability to maintain control over its development. Innis considers political and economic forces in the context of social change and the role of communication in the creation of both ancient and modern empires. In an essay for this new edition, Innis biographer Alexander John Watson examines the reasons why Innis, at the height of his success as an economic historian, embarked on new research areas of communications and empire, as well as the ways in which Marshall McLuhan's interpretations of Innis changed and de-politicized Innis's work. As important today as it was when first published, The Bias of Communication is essential reading for historians and scholars of communication and media studies.

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.

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 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.

This classic book, Harold Innis's last, returns to print with a new introduction by James Carey. An elaboration of Innis's earlier theories, Changing Concepts of Time looks at then-new technological changes in communication and considers the different ways in which space and time are perceived. Innis explores military implications of the U. S. constitution, freedom of the press, communication monopolies, culture, and press support of presidential candidates, among other interesting and diverse topics.

This classic book, Harold Innis's last, returns to print with a new introduction by James Carey. An elaboration of Innis's earlier theories, Changing Concepts of Time looks at then-new technological changes in communication and considers the different ways in which space and time are perceived. Innis explores military implications of the U. S. constitution, freedom of the press, communication monopolies, culture, and press support of presidential candidates, among other interesting and diverse topics.

At the time of its publication in 1930, The Fur Trade in Canada challenged and inspired scholars, historians, and economists. Now, almost seventy years later, Harold Innis's fundamental reinterpretation of Canadian history continues to exert a magnetic influence. Innis has long been regarded as one of Canada's foremost historians, and in The Fur Trade in Canada he presents several histories in one: social history through the clash between colonial and aboriginal cultures; economic history in the development of the West as a result of Eastern colonial and European needs; and transportation history in the case of the displacement of the canoe by the York boat. Political history appears in Innis's examination of the nature of French-British rivalry and the American Revolution; and business history is represented in his detailed account of the Hudson's Bay and Northwest Companies and the industry that played so vital a role in the expansion of Canada. In his introduction to this new edition, Arthur J. Ray argues that The Fur Trade in Canada is the most definitive economic history and geography of the country ever produced. Innis's revolutionary conclusion - that Canada was created because of its geography, not in spite of it - is a captivating idea but also an enigmatic proposition in light of the powerful decentralizing forces that threaten the nation today. Ray presents the history of the book and concludes that "Innis's great book remains essential reading for the study of Canada."

At the start of his career Innis set out to explain the significance of price rigidities in the cultural, social, and political institutions of new countries; by the end of his intellectual journey he had become one of the most influential critics of modernity. The essays in this collection address a variety of themes, including the rise of industrialism and the expansion of international markets, staples trades, critical factors in Canadian development, metropolitanism and nationality, the problems of adjustment, the political economy of communications, the economics of cultural change, and Innis's conception of the role of the intellectual as citizen. Innis succeeded as few others have in providing an astute and comprehensive account of the economic and social forces shaping modernity. His abiding interest in the contradictory and unintended consequences of markets in general - the dominant structure of modern economic activity - gave rise to the rich legacy of his prodigious output.

This new edition of Harold Innis's essays, published on the occasion of his centenary, assembles his most significant and representative writing. Included are many of Innis's essays on cultural issues and economic development.

This volume of essays in Political Science is a tribute to the character and work of Professor Edward Johns Urwick who in June, 1937, retired under the age limit from the chair of Political Economy in the University of Toronto. It is the first volume of a series in Political Economy to be published by the Maurice Cody Foundation and the University of Toronto Press. It includes articles written by colleagues of Professor Urwick in the Department of Political Economy on subjects in which they had special interest, and articles which are summaries of work done by holders of the Maurice Cody Fellowship since its establishment in 1928. By a happy coincidence, this volume is issued fifty years after the chair in Political Economy was founded.

The Cod Fisheries, originally published in 1938 and revised and reissued in 1954, presented a new interpretation of European and North American history that has since become a classic. With that rare skill he possessed of weaving together the various strands of a complex and difficult historical situation, Innis showed how the exploitation of the cod fisheries from the fifteenth century to the twentieth has been closely tied up with the whole economic and political development of Western Europe and North America. The relationship of the fisheries to the maritime greatness of Britain and to the growth of New England as an important commercial power is particularly stressed; and in the examination of the conflicts growing up about this industry are revealed the forces underlying the struggle between Britain and France for control of the new world, and the forces which led to the collapse of thye British Empire in America and the rise of an independent new world political power. The political struggles with Nova Scotia and the long conflict with the United States, continuing far into the nineteenth century, are examined in careful detail.

The purpose of this study is to present and examine significant British colonial theories on the advantages and disadvantages resulting to the mother country from the establishment and maintenance of overseas colonies. For what reasons was the building and preservation of Empire thought profitable or unprofitable to the British nation? Professor Knorr has performed a major service in providing a selection of representative statements in the course of a discussion which proceeds by chronological periods and also by important topics from contemporary events. The original printing of this work, published in 1944, was received with enthusiastic reviews and went out of print in a few years. An equally warm welcome can be predicted now.

This volume is a general survey of pure value and distribution theory written for students who have completed a more discursive elementary course, or, perhaps, for a select group of students entering on a series of courses in economics. The book is divided into two parts. Book I is a good, intelligent treatment of the scope and methods of Economics. Book II contains an algebraic analysis of pricing in an economy of two individuals, and of pricing and distribution with two commodities. Changes in price and distribution equilibria over time are discussed and illustrated in a series of admirably executed three-dimensional diagrams. This is the author's attempt to sharpen and clarify in his own mind the basic principles and concepts of price theory. It attempts to be precise and it is entirely devoted to the problems of price theory. It may help some students of economics to concentrate on the fundamental problems of price theory and to master rigorous techniques in a way a more discursive book could not.