Books by Robert E. Babe

Culture of Ecology marks the beginning in a struggle to prove that, given the right approach, economy and ecosystem need not be mutually exclusive.

This book addresses the notorious split between the two fields of cultural studies and political economy. Drawing on the works of Harold Innis, Theodor Adorno, Raymond Williams, Richard Hoggart, E.P. Thompson, and other major theorists in the two fields, Robert E. Babe shows that political economy can be reconciled to certain aspects of cultural studies, particularly with regards to cultural materialism. Uniting the two fields has proven to be a complex undertaking though it makes practical sense, given the close interaction between political economy and cultural studies. Babe examines the evolution of cultural studies over time and its changing relationship with political economy. The intersections between the two fields center around three subjects: the cultural biases of money, the time/space dialectic, and the dialectic of information.

Wilbur Schramm and Noam Chomsky Meet Harold Innis is an original, critical, in-depth analysis of the media and communication thought of Canada's most highly acclaimed scholar, Harold Adams Innis. Even in Canada, however, Innis's writings until now have been only partially cited and interpreted: Innis is usually stereotyped as being merely an economic historian fixated on previous civilizations, whereas in fact he was an astute analyst whose main concerns were with present problems and future trajectories. In the United States, meanwhile, Innis's media and communication writings have been quite neglected and even denigrated. Drawing on Innis's less frequently cited work, including his long neglected Political Economy in the Modern State, Robert Babe opens up Innis's media scholarship as a whole, unfolding it in startling critical, yet ultimately appreciative ways. By comparing Innis's media scholarship with Wilbur Schramms and Noam Chomskys, moreover, Babe tests the claims, positions, and modes of analysis not only of Innis, but also of the other two celebrated scholars as well, casting new light on their works and allowing the reader to imagine what sort of discourses might have been possible had the three been in conversation together. Wilbur Schramm and Noam Chomsky Meet Harold Innis provides comparative insight into foundational media scholarship in the United States and Canada, and explores in some detail the relevance of Innis for twenty-first century digitized society.

Babe examines the writings of ten major thinkers in the context of their physical and cultural environments and finds that there is indeed a mode of theorizing that is quintessentially Canadian.