Books by Marshall McLuhan

Written by the author who is known for coining the term 'Global Village', this title illustrates his theories that force us to question how modes of communication have shaped society.

Say the name Marshall McLuhan and you think of the great discover's explorations of the media. But throughout his life, McLuhan never stopped reflecting profoundly on the nature of God and worship, and on the traditions of the Church. Often other intellectuals and artists would ask him incredulously, ""Are you really a Catholic?"" He would answer, ""Yes, I am a Catholic, the worst kind -- a convert,"" leaving them more baffled than before. Here, like a golden thread lining his public utterances on the media, are McLuhan's brilliant probes into the nature of conversion, the church's understanding of media, the shape of tomorrow's church, religion and youth, and the God-making machines of the modern world. This fascinating collection, gathered from his many and scattered remarks, essays, and other writings, shows the deeply Christian side of a man widely considered the most important thinker of our time, a man whose insights into media and culture have revolutionized the field of media study and the way we see the world.

Understanding Media: the most important book ever written on communication. Ignore its message at your peril.

Reviews No one understood causality, whether Aristotelian or electric, like Marshall McLuhan. Now, in Media and Formal Cause, no one reveals understanding of formal cause in the digital environment better than McLuhan's protégé son, Eric. In the foreword, Lance Strate writes that M. McLuhan's Understanding Media was one of the most important books of the 20th century. For anyone who wishes to understand how things truly work, Media and Formal Cause is one of the most important books of the 21st. Arguably formal cause has been the least understood but the most intellectually important of all of Aristotle's four agents or processes of causation. This small volume proffers a large understanding of this formative, previously mysterious level of invisible creation. Three essays by Marshall (one with co-author Barry Nevitt) and a powerful new essay by Eric give new meaning to ye olde cliché, "like father, like son". While reading writing that is engaging, encyclopedic, and electric, we discover that formal cause is not what you think... but it is vital to how you think.-Thomas Cooper, Professor of Visual and Media Arts, Emerson College; author of Fast Media/Media FastIn Media and Formal Cause Eric McLuhan updates an important part of his father's work that is often overlooked, the quixotic role of causality in making sense of how new media change the way we construct our environment and our communication. How does novelty cause antiquity? When do effects precede causes? Read on, and you shall find out.-David Rothenberg, Professor of Philosophy and Music, New Jersey Institute of Technology; author of Why Birds Sing and Thousand Mile SongLike his mentor, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Marshall McLuhan was often accused of indulging in mere paradox. But Media and Formal Cause demonstrates the profound understanding that underlies the work of both Chesterton and McLuhan, the understanding that we live in a paradoxical world. Both McLuhan and Chesterton attempted to jar readers loose from what Cardinal Newman called "paper logic" into a recognition of the total situation in which we find ourselves. This very readable and accessible volume should greatly assist new readers of McLuhan and remind long time students of just how challenging and exhilarating his explorations were.-Philip Marchand, author, Marshall McLuhan: The Medium and the MessengerA sage and perceptive quartet of essays which capture and extend a still quintessentially unique way of thinking about media, via patterns and connections that harken to the ancient world and redound to our present and future.-Paul Levinson, Professor of Communication and Media Studies, Fordham University; author of Digital McLuhan, and of New New Media

McLuhan's essays collected here describe the processes in which the new electronic media produce a synthesis of time and space and also shows how they reinvigorate/reinvent communications by transforming the realm of the senses and that of language.

Brings together the key writings of Marshall McLuhan. In a communications environment transformed by the rapid spread of electronic media, McLuhans insights are fresher and even more applicable than when first written.