Description: In Unthinking Modernity Judith Stamps reinterprets the communications theory of Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan as a Canadian variant of the critical theory associated with the early Frankfurt school. Stamps argues that Innis and McLuhan used their studies of media to develop a critique of the thoughts and habits that characterize the West.
Review Quotes: "Stamps's claims are compellingly stated, elegantly elaborated, and carefully substantiated. Unthinking Modernity promises not only to provoke scholarly debate on the nature and significance of the work of Innis and McLuhan, but to raise issues about how modernity can best be understood. Given the perennial concern with critical theory, the continuing enigma of Marshall McLuhan, and the heightened interest in the work of Innis occasioned by the centenary of his birth ... Stamps's important work couldn't be more timely." William Buxton, co-editor of Harold Innis in the New Century: Reflections and Refractions