Harold Innis: 10 books

One of the most influential books ever published in Canada, Harold A. Innis's The Bias of Communication has played a major part in reshaping our understanding of history, communication, and media theory. First published in 1951, this masterful collection of essays explores the relationship between...

At the time of its publication in 1930, The Fur Trade in Canada challenged and inspired scholars, historians, and economists. Now, almost seventy years later, Harold Innis's fundamental reinterpretation of Canadian history continues to exert a magnetic influence. Innis has long been regarded...

Political Economy in the Modern State is Harold Innis’s transitional and, in some respects, his most transformative book. Completed in 1946, it is a collection of fifteen chapters plus a remarkable Preface selected and crafted to address four main themes: the problem of power and peace in the post-War...

Harold A. Innis helped to found the field of Canadian economic history. He is best known for the "staples thesis" which dominated the discourse of Canadian economic history for decades. This volume collects Innis’ published and unpublished essays on economic history, from 1929 to...

The Cod Fisheries, originally published in 1938 and revised and reissued in 1954, presented a new interpretation of European and North American history that has since become a classic. With that rare skill he possessed of weaving together the various strands of a complex and difficult historical situation,...

This anthology of hard-to-find primary documents provides a solid overview of the foundations of American media studies. Focusing on mass communication and society and how this research fits into larger patterns of social thought, this valuable collection features key texts covering the media studies...

This classic book, Harold Innis's last, returns to print with a new introduction by James Carey. An elaboration of Innis's earlier theories, Changing Concepts of Time looks at then-new technological changes in communication and considers the different ways in which space and time are perceived. Innis...

It’s been said that without Harold A. Innis there could have been no Marshall McLuhan. Empire and Communications is one of Innis’s most important contributions to the debate about how media influence the development of consciousness and societies. In this seminal text, he traces humanity’s movement...

Empire and Communications is Innis's important contribution to the debate about how media influenced the development of consciousness and societies. In this foundational work, he traced humanity's movement from the oral tradition of pre-literate cultures to the written word to electronic media of...

This volume of essays in Political Science is a tribute to the character and work of Professor Edward Johns Urwick who in June, 1937, retired under the age limit from the chair of Political Economy in the University of Toronto. It is the first volume of a series in Political Economy to be published...