drbarb's review
The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects by Marshall McLuhan
drbarb's review
rating:
bookshelves: classics-re-readfrequently
recommended for: everyone
status: Read in October, 1970
rating:
bookshelves: classics-re-readfrequently
recommended for: everyone
status: Read in October, 1970
In 1970, I was just an undergrad and about 17 or 18 years old. My teacher was this old, chain-smoking guy who looked like someone's grandpa. He was Harry Skornia, one of [Ed:] "Murrow's boys" and a media giant. After WWII, it was his job to set up radio again in Germany.
He, of all people, had us reading McLuhan. At the time, McLuhan had to pay a typesetter extra just to print this book for him because it had pages where the type bled onto images and some pages were printed with upside-down text.
It took me about 15 years to get everything McLuhan was saying. This is primarily because he was a visionary and he could see outlines of what the future would resolve into. McLuhan read everything and was a scholar of the first order. His leap from economic theory about the use and abuse of natural resources to thinking about media "tubes" (the media themselves--broadcast, print, etc.)as natural resources is profound.
He never could bring himself to say that thro...more
He, of all people, had us reading McLuhan. At the time, McLuhan had to pay a typesetter extra just to print this book for him because it had pages where the type bled onto images and some pages were printed with upside-down text.
It took me about 15 years to get everything McLuhan was saying. This is primarily because he was a visionary and he could see outlines of what the future would resolve into. McLuhan read everything and was a scholar of the first order. His leap from economic theory about the use and abuse of natural resources to thinking about media "tubes" (the media themselves--broadcast, print, etc.)as natural resources is profound.
He never could bring himself to say that thro...more
