HAROLD INNIS

'Harold Adams Innis' (November 5, 1894 – November 8, 1952) was a professor of political economy at the University of Toronto and the author of many seminal works on Canadian economic history and on media and communication theory. Innis laid the basis for scholarship that looked at the social sciences from a distinctly Canadian point of view. As the head of U of T's political economy department, he worked to build up a cadre of Canadian scholars so that universities would not continue to rely as heavily on British or American professors unfamiliar with Canada's history and culture. Innis also tried to defend the independence of universities from political and economic pressures believing that universities, as centers of critical thought, were essential to the survival of civilization.

Contents

His life

His ideas

His works

Biographical and Critical Studies

Notes

References

See also

External links

His life

Harold Adams Innis was born on a small livestock and dairy farm near the community of Otterville in Southwestern Ontario. As a boy he loved the rhythms and routines of farm life and he never forgot his rural origins.^[1]
Innis went to McMaster University in 1915. Upon graduation he enlisted and was sent to France to fight in the First World War, where he was injured by an artillery shell at Vimy Ridge.^[2] Upon his return home he completed an MA at McMaster before receiving his doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago and wrote his thesis on the history of the CPR. His interest in the development of empire-building nations and the relationship between empires and marginalized colonial nations was developed in his classic writings, The Fur Trade in Canada (1930) and the Cod Fisheries (1940). He then turned to a study of the nature of media and their influence on human thought. He was the first native-born Canadian-social scientist to earn an international reputation, and was president of the American Economic Association at the time of his death.He spent the rest of his career at the University of Toronto, where he served as the department chair of political economy and dean of graduate studies.
Innis died of cancer in 1952. To commemorate him, Innis College at the University of Toronto was named after him as well as Innis Library at McMaster University.

His ideas

He is known for the "nuts and bolts" approach of analysing Canada's political economy: focusing on the nation's role as an exporter of raw materials and grains, and using this to explain its regionalism and the working of its political superstructure. This is known as the staples thesis, and it is still the underpinning of the study of Canada's economic history.
Innis' primary contribution to the field of communication, written in Empire and Communications, was to divide media into time biased (or binding) media and space biased (or binding) media. Time binding media include hand-written and oral sources that are intended to last for many generations, but are only successfully used in relatively small communities. Space binding media include most of the modern media such as radio, and television, as well as newspapers. This is information that is meant to reach as many as possible, but will not last long in time. While time binding media favoured community and metaphysics, space binding media favoured commercialism and imperialism.
Marshall McLuhan was a colleague and student of Innis' at the University of Toronto, and he built on many of Innis' ideas, going so far as to describe his breakthrough work ''The Gutenberg Galaxy'' (1962) as "a footnote to the work of Harold Innis".
Innis' theories of political economy, media and society remain highly relevant today: he had a profound influence on critical media theory and communications and, in conjunction with McLuhan, offered groundbreaking Canadian perspectives on the function of communication technologies as key agents in social and historical change. Together, their works advanced a theory of history in which communication is central to social change and transformation.

His works

★ ''A History of the Canadian Pacific Railway'' - (1923)

★ ''The Fur Trade in Canada: An Introduction to Canadian Economic History'' - (1930)

★ ''The Cod Fisheries: The History of an International Economy'' - (1940)

★ ''Political Economy in the Modern State'' - (1946)

★ ''The Diary of Simeon Perkins: 1766-1780'', ed. - (1948)

★ ''Empire and Communications'' - (1950)

★ ''The Bias of Communication'' - (1951)

★ ''The Strategy of Culture'' - (1952)

★ ''Changing Concepts of Time'' - (1952)

★ ''Essays in Canadian Economic History'' - (1956)

★ ''The Idea File of Harold Adams Innis'' - (1980)

Biographical and Critical Studies

★ Acland, C.R. & Buxton, W.J. (1999) ''Harold Innis in the New Century''. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press.

★ Angus, I. (1998). The Materiality of Expression: Harold Innis' Communication Theory and the Discursive Turn in the Human Sciences. ''Canadian Journal of Communication, 23''(1), 9-29.

★ Babe, Robert. (2000). "The Communication Thought of Harold Adams Innis." In ''Canadian Communication Thought: Ten Foundational Writers''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 51-88.

★ Berger, Carl. (1976). "Harold Innis: The Search for Limits." In ''The Writing of Canadian History''. Toronto: Oxford University Press. 85-111.

★ Buxton, W. J. (1998). Harold Innis' Excavation of Modernity: The Newspaper Industry, Communications, and the Decline of Public Life. ''Canadian Journal of Communication, 23''(3), 321-339.

★ Carey, J. W. (1967). Harold Adams Innis and Marshall McLuhan. ''The Antioch Review,'' 27(1), 5-39.

★ Carey, J. W. (1992). "Space, Time and Communications: A Tribute to Harold Innis." In ''Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society''. New York: Routledge. 142-172.

★ Cooper, T. W. (1981). McLuhan and Innis: The Canadian Theme of Boundless Exploration. ''Journal of Communication, 31''(3), 153-161.

★ Collins, R. (1986). The Metaphor of Dependency and Canadian Communications: The Legacy of Harold Innis. ''Canadian Journal of Communication, 12''(1), 1-19.

★ Creighton, Donald. (1957). ''Harold Adams Innis: Portrait of a Scholar''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

★ Garde, R. d. l. (1987). The 1987 Southam Lecture: Mr. Innis, is there life after the "American Empire"? ''Canadian Journal of Communication'' (Special Issue), 7-21.

★ Havelock, Eric. (1982). ''Harold A. Innis: a memoir'' (with a preface by H. Marshall McLuhan). Toronto: Harold Innis Foundation.

★ Heyer, Paul. (2003). ''Harold Innis''. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.

★ Kroker, Arthur. (1984). ''Technology and the Canadian Mind: Innis/McLuhan/Grant''. Montreal: New World Perspectives.

★ McLuhan, Marshall. (2005) "Introduction to the Bias of Communication: [Harold A. Innis first edition 1951.]" In ''Marshall McLuhan Unbound''. Corte Madera, CA: Gingko Press. v.8.

★ McNally, D. (1981). Staple Theory as Commodity Fetishism: Marx, Innis, and Canadian Political Economy. ''Studies in Political Economy, 6'', 35-63.

★ Neill, Robin. (1972). ''A New Theory of Value: The Canadian Economics of H.A. Innis''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

★ Salutin, R. (1997). Last Call From Harold Innis. ''Queen's Quarterly, 104''(2), 245-259.

★ Varis, T. (1993). Culture, Communication, and Dependency: A Dialogue with William H. Melody on Harold Innis. ''Nordicom Review, 1'', 11-14.

★ Watson, Alexander. (2006). ''Marginal Man: The Dark Vision of Harold Innis''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Notes

1. Creighton, Donald. Harold Adams Innis: Portrait of a Scholar. University of Toronto Press. (1957)
2. "Harold Adams Innis (1894-1952)" in ''Old Messengers, New Media: The Legacy of Innis and McLuhan'', a virtual museum exhibition at Library and Archives Canada

References

★ Old Messengers, New Media: The Legacy of Innis and McLuhan, a virtual museum exhibition at Library and Archives Canada

See also

★ Toronto School of communication theory

★ Technological nationalism

★ Monopolies of knowledge

External links

★ Article on Innis from EH.NET's Encyclopedia