The fame of Marshall McLuhan in the late Sixties, a period more favourable to guruism than the present, was beyond the dreams of even the most ambitious don. His slogans were quoted everywhere, he travelled the world - now, on his view, electronically reduced to a global village - addressing his fans, advising admen, businessmen, politicians and theologians, telling us all what reality would look like if we broke our habit of contemplating it only through the rear-view mirror, firing off his 'probes', his heavy puns and his strangely old-fashioned jokes. (He was very keen on these jokes, and freely offered them to anybody who might need them for after-dinner speeches - Prime Minister Trudeau, for instance.) He was a pioneer in the movement, now seemingly irresistible, which has carried English literature professors out of literature into larger and, one must suppose, more exciting studies - philosophy, law, psychoanalysis, history, 'culture', 'theory' and prophecy.

LRB 17 March 1988 | PDF Download