"After three thousand years of explosion, by means of fragmentary and mechanical technologies, the Western world is imploding. During the mechanical ages we had extended our bodies in space. Today, after more than a century of electric technology, we have extended our central nervous system itself in a global embrace, abolishing both space and time as far as our planet is concerned. Rapidly, we approach the final phase of the extensions of man - the technological simulation of consciousness, when the creative process of knowing will be collectively and corporately extended to the whole of human society, much as we have already extended our senses and our nerves by the various media."
-Marshal Mcluhan



Tom Wolfe has written about Marshall Mcluhan, a Canadian who had been hired by the worlds leading corporate nations to give them a glimpse of the future. Mcluhan's awareness of literary and historical truths have led him to a deeper understanding of who we are and how we got here via the development of technology.

The author of many important books on media theory, perhaps the most important book arguably was his Gutenberg Galaxy' written in his backyard on a ping-pong table. This book follows the change from visual cultures to the linear thought processes and information dissemination vis a vis the printing press. The path has now lead us back into the visual, with computer technologies.

"The medium is the message", and "Global Villiage" are Mcluhan's more well known ideas, but they are only specks in the eye of those looking at his work as a whole. Also the Patron Saint of Wired Magazine.

Marshall McLuhan is ranked prominently among Canada's most influential personalities, which means that much of his work is still widely circulated in Canadian public institutions. In particular, some excellent materials can be found at the CBC archives, which have recently been added to the CBC website (http://archives.cbc.ca/) in celebration of their 50th anniversary. These include radio and television broadcasts featuring McLuhan discussing his best-known theories, including those describing the global village and hot and cool media.

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