Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. This item is unavailable.Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man

When first published, Marshall McLuhans Understanding Media made history with its radical view of the effects of electronic communications upon man and life in the twentieth century. This edition of McLuhans best-known book both enhances its accessibility to a general audience and provides the full critical apparatus necessary for scholars. This critical edition makes available for the first time the core of the research project that spawned the book.

Herbert Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) was a Canadian philosopher, whose work is one of the cornerstones of the study of media theory. Born in Edmonton, Alberta, McLuhan studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of Cambridge. He began his teaching career as a professor of English at several universities in the US and Canada before moving to the University of Toronto in 1946, where he remained for the rest of his life.

McLuhan coined the expression "the medium is the message" and the term global village. He also predicted the World Wide Web almost 30 years before it was invented. He was a fixture in media discourse in the late 1960s. In the years after his death, he continued to be a controversial figure in academic circles. With the arrival of the Internet and the World Wide Web, interest was renewed in his work and perspective, both of which are frequently referenced today in both academia and pop culture.