Herbert Marshall McLuhan predicted the World Wide Web nearly 30 years before it arrived and coined the expressions “the medium is the message” and “the global village.” He was a leading and often controversial thinker on the universal impact of mass media. The arrival of the Internet helped sparked renewed interest in his work and perspective, long after his death in 1980. (Herzog on Heritage: Marshall McLuhan Residence). McLuhan was a leading 20th-century thinker and spent his formative years in Edmonton until the family moved to Eastern Canada.
Marshall McLuhan received a Ph.D. from Cambridge in 1934 and taught English at various colleges throughout the United States before settling in Toronto in 1944. Over this time, he developed his theories and forecasting trends including globalization in the digital era and studied new media and the impact on human perception through manipulation of the central nervous system.
I think of art, at its most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning system that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.
Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media
McLuhan House, owned and restored by Arts Habitat, features an interpretative display celebrating Dr. Marshall McLuhan and is dedicated to his life, research, and relationship to Edmonton. The gallery contains private family photos donated by Michael McLuhan on behalf of the McLuhan Estate.
Want to learn more? Explore some of our favourite links for more McLuhan.
LINKS
- Official Website of the Marshall McLuhan Estate
- Marshall McLuhan Speaks Special Collection
- Video of Marshall McLuhan’s lectures, interviews and more
- The McLuhan Bookshop offers rare books and publications by Marshall
- McLuhan and his collaborators
- University of Toronto Coach House Institute, McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology offers a wide range of resources and research.
- Marshall McLuhan on Twitter
- McLuhan Galaxy Blog
- Web-based map and timeline of Marshall McLuhan–related events
