Customer Reviews (4)

McLuhan's Mythologies
This, McLuhan's first book, serves as a good introduction to him, since he has not yet begun to formulate his theories about media that would later make him so famous. Consequently, it is easier to read than, say, The Gutenberg Galaxy or Understanding Media. It is also much more fun.

The reader should keep in mind that this is still premature McLuhan, for he had not yet read Harold Innis's 1950 classic--which represents the true birth of media studies--Empire and Communications. This book hit McLuhan like an atomic bomb, for it completely ruptured his thinking regarding media. In The Mechanical Bride, he is still analyzing the content of the media, deciphering what the subliminal messages are saying to us unconsciously; but after reading Innis, he realized that it was not the message that was important (at least not for him) but rather the type of medium through which the message was conveyed, for Innis's discussions of how particular kinds of media affected the nature and structure of ancient empires caused McLuhan to realize that it was actually the medium that was the important thing. Whether a culture used clay or papyrus as its means of communication, Innis asserted, determined much about the fate of that culture.

With that caveat in mind, then, the reader is free to roam through these pages, observing a McLuhan that would never exist in the same way again. He comments, sometimes hilariously, on one advertisement, movie poster or magazine after the next. He has interesting things to say about genres like the Western or the soap opera (for instance, he says that the Western is the masculine equivalent to the soap opera, for its values are the opposite of those of the domestic drama) and we also find here, for the first time, his speculations on Sherlock Holmes, a theme that will recur in many of his later writings.

McLuhan at this point had read and metabolized such key thinkers for him as Lewis Mumford and Siegfried Giedion, and they are referred to often in the body of the text. (There even occurs a reference to Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces; apparently the only book he ever read by Campbell, his Irish intellectual colleague who was more concerned with deciphering the messages than the media themselves). McLuhan, in The Mechanical Bride, is still feeling his way, and he is not yet sure of himself. But it is a delight for the reader to watch this great American thinker--the equivalent, easily, of any of the great French postmodernists (this book bears certain similarities, for instance, to Barthes' Mythologies)--tentatively poking his way about in the middenheap of popular culture, looking for ways in which to organize it into something one can get a grasp on.

I hope that you enjoy this book as much as I did. But do let me know if you don't.
--John David Ebert, author
Celluloid Heroes & Mechanical Dragons: Film as the Mythology of Electronic Society

For People In The Know
The "modern gal" knows that "getting ahead" means being the first on her block to articulate the ways her body and cultural practices are transformed into parts and routines -- she reads The Mechanical Bride to "stay in the know" regarding the ways that reflection on the discourse of her body can be used to advance her academic career! And "guys on their way to the top", in academic circles ranging from media history to cultural studies, tune into The Mechanical Bride to find out the latest "swinging styles" in everything from discourse analysis to popular tropes for identity production.Keep it in mind, all you Sirens and Sages of the Academy: When it "comes to success" there is "deep consolation" in knowing that the "cream of the crop" always "rises to the top" because it never "falls out of step" with the latest critical styles -- in a liberal era and place, such as our own, this really is Freedom "American Style"!

Modern-day myth-making turned on its head
This is McLuhan's first book, originally published in 1951 and has been long out of print. It precedes his second book and cult classic 'The Gutenberg Galaxy', by a decade and a half. This is also quite unique in that it has no relationship with McLuhan's more famous theoretical ramblings.

In this book, McLuhan takes on myth-making in US society by showing how film posters, comic strips, advertisements, magazine covers, newspaper layout and articles etc., try to persuade people into something, and yet a close observation of their inherent contradictions allows you to escape their machinations.

The book celebrates deliberate misreading of commonplace things like advertising to show how the persuasive trap of mass culture/consumer culture can be escaped.

All articles in the book follow the format of article/poster/ad, its analysis and some sharp witty aphoristic observations in a boxed area that serve as liberating repartees against the messages that these products of consumer culture intend to send.

The philosophy of the book is derived from McLuhan's premise (borrowed from Edgar Allan Poe's story 'The Maelstrom') that to escape a maelstrom you need to study things going down and things that resurface and align yourself with things that resurface.

In this respect, it can be considered a jargon-free precursor of latter-day deconstructive literary and cultural criticism. And it is much more liberating and enlightening to a lay reader than jargon ridden discussions or purely vehement denuciations of the power of mass culture which don't help laymen liberate themselves anyway, because of their highly inaccessible prose.

As relevant today as it was fifty years ago
Originally published in 1951, The Mechanical Bride: Folklore Of Industrial Man by the influential philosopher and cultural observer Marshall McLuhan is a thoughtful and thought-provoking treatise that seeks to unveil the subtle and sometimes venomous effects of media and modern mass communication. Thoughtful, sometimes philosophical, sometimes prediction with deadpan seriousness, The Mechanical Bride is as relevant today as it was fifty years ago and highly recommended reading for students of Mass Communications and Journalism, Contemporary American Sociology, and Modern Philosophy. ... Read more

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This issue has a stellar group of contributors including e. e. cummings, Jorge Luis Borges, Marshall McLuhan, Dorothy Lee, Northrop Frye and many more. ... Read more

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Q3739 Signet Non-Fiction1st edition January, 1969 Printed in Canada, cover in USA ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Marshall knew it back then what is right here, right now!
If you are reading this review, you are doing exactly what Marshall feared most and predicted back in 1969 when laying his thoughts, joys and fears of electronic media and the de-evolution of arts and humanities. Yes HUMAN-ities are soon to be completely erased from whatever fast food culture is left in 2000 and beyond. Humans slowly have evolved over time from human beings to Humans doing. And Marshall McLuhan was an early genius well aware of the dangers of our lust for quick and immediate gratification and results from all life's pleasures, lessons, fate and present moment circumstances. Unfortunately our insane need for convenience (as McLuhan predicted) willfurther class struggle, unemployment, depression, progress to a "un-culture" with limited & emptyhuman expression, creativity, emotion &feeling. .We think the internet would be the next doorway to Utopia? Wrong! As Marshall points out throughout this beautifull, yet dangerously close to g! od-like premenions this e-culture will erase physical interaction & contact to family, friends, and ultimately ourselves. We will be transscribed and altered by our 100% adaptation, manipulation and masterbation of the electronsMcDonalds! McAmazon! McArt! McPeople! McNothing! McGoodbye! McAbsolute clear and correct predictions and thoughts fill the pages of Mechanical Bride regarding YOU, right here, right NOW! McLuhan!, baby. Buy it online today (while you still can!)This book will strengthen your coffee shop banter while the painted canvas, beat poet, and free form jazz players are gasp for life. I think Marshall would agree that Bill Gates should be respected and consulted ASAP on how to FIX this impeding doom, similar to Andrew Carnagie way back when his workers cried for freedom. (We don't know that were slaves yet) How strange that our culture's intellectual ellites throw crass judgement upon a Gates & his world we all celebrate and beneifit from (again right!here, right now)Marhsall McLuhan knew that this would ha! ppen. He just did not know his name would be Bill. Amazon indie bookstore killers,romans and countrymen lend me your modem! buy this book NOW. ... Read more

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The most influential book by the most debated man of the decade... "The most important thinker since Newton, Darwin, Freud, Einstein, and Pavlov." ... Read more

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UNDERSTANDING MEDIA IS THE BOOK THAT'S MAKING TODAY A REVIEW OF UNDERSTANDING MEDIA.

"The oracle of the information age" -- LIVE
"The oracle of the blogosphere" -- NEWSFEED ... Read more

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Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Marshall Mcluhan, Harold Innis, Walter J. Ong, Neil Postman, John Miles Foley, Harley Parker, Morris Berman, Arthur Harkins. Excerpt:Arthur M. Harkins , Ph.D. (born 1936), is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Policy and Administration and faculty director of the Graduate Certificate in Innovation Studies program at the University of Minnesota (UMN) who co-authored StoryTech with George Kubik. See also (online edition) item Futures studies item Socialization Websites (URLs online) item UMN Professional Profile item TakingIT Global - (Inspire. Inform. Involve.) A hyperlinked version of this chapter is at Harley Parker Harley Parker (April 13, 1915 March 3, 1992) was a Canadian artist , designer , curator , professor and scholar - a frequent collaborator with fellow Canadian and communications theorist Marshall McLuhan . Parker specialized in watercolour painting, and exhibited internationally. He was awarded numerous grants over his life, including two Canada Council Grants , and a British Council of the Arts Grant . He lectured all over the world, was published internationally, and collaborated closely with manifold scholars and thinkers, McLuhan among them. Life and career Harley Parker was born in Fort William, Ontario in 1915. He graduated from the Ontario College of Art (OCA) in Toronto, Ontario in 1939, and from there went on to work independently as an artist. Years later, he taught color, design, and watercolor. In 1946, he attended and completed further studies at Black Mountain College in Virginia , studying under Josef Albers . Between the years of 1947 and 1957, Parker taught colour theory and design , as well as watercolour techniques, at the Ontario College of Art (OCA) in Toronto, Ontario . In 1957, he assumed the position of Head of Design a... ... Read more

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Chapters: Marshall Mcluhan, Mordecai Richler, Pierre Berton, John Ralston Saul, Northrop Frye, David Adams Richards, Jeffrey Simpson, George Woodcock, Stephen Leacock, Michael Ignatieff, Roméo Dallaire, Frederick Philip Grove, Donald Creighton, Roger Caron, Emily Carr, Hugh Maclennan, Robert Hunter, Margaret Macmillan, Governor General's Award for English Language Non-Fiction, F. R. Scott, Thomas Head Raddall, Governor General's Award for French Language Non-Fiction, Frank Underhill, J. M. S. Careless, Jean-François Lisée, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Bruce Hutchison, Gustave Lanctot, Arthur R. M. Lower, Gérard Bouchard, Stephen Clarkson, Karen Connelly, Pierre Nepveu, Nega Mezlekia, Marcel Trudel, Phyllis Grosskurth, Charles Ritchie, Michel Brunet, Régine Robin, Maggie Siggins, George Ramsay Cook, T. A. Goudge, Anthony Adamson, Rosemary Sullivan, François Paré, Jean le Moyne, Louis-Edmond Hamelin, Michel Bock, Christina Mccall, John Murray Gibbon, Sandra Gwyn, Laura Salverson, Rachel Manley. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 255. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Michael Grant Ignatieff (pronounced ; born May 12, 1947) is the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Leader of the Official Opposition in Canada. Widely known for his work as an historian and author, Ignatieff held senior academic posts at the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, Harvard University and the University of Toronto before entering politics in 2006. In the 2006 federal election, Ignatieff was elected to the House of Commons as the Member of Parliament for EtobicokeLakeshore. That same year, he ran for the leadership of the Liberal Party, ultimately conceding to Stéphane Dion after the fourth and final ballot. He served as the party's deputy leader under Dion, and held his seat in the 2008 federal elec...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=6391151 ... Read more

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Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Marshall Mcluhan, Walter J. Ong, Kurt Von Schuschnigg, Thomas Madden, Clarence H. Miller, Ben Abell, Edward Adelbert Doisy, Howard S. Levie, Aaron Belz, Tom Shippey, James T. Moore, Kenneth F. Warren, Michael J. Garanzini, Jason Sommer, Donald T. Critchlow, Don Kates, Michael A. Wolff, Philip O. Alderson, Gandikota V. Rao, James B. Macelwane, Joe Weixlmann. Excerpt:Aaron Belz is an American poet associated with Language School and New York School poetics. Life He graduated from Covenant College (1993), from New York University with a Master's in Creative Writing (1995), and from Saint Louis University with a Ph.D. in English (2007). He has taught at Fontbonne University , Saint Louis University , and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville . He teaches at Providence Christian College . His work appeared in Cardus , Exquisite Corpse , Mudfish , Gulf Coast , RealPoetik , canwehaveourballback.com , elimae , Fence , Fine Madness , Snow Monkey and Pierogi Press , meaningless.com . Dr. Belz and his wife Rebecca have three children. Works Criticism Essays Reviews In Aaron Belz's The Bird Hoverer , traditional poetic forms meet celebrities, strangeness, and biblical plagues, setting the stage for a hilarious, fiercely intelligent collection of poems. With Plausible Worlds , his first chapbook, Aaron Belz offers us a poetry of exhilaration and exuberance where the self is drowned in a flood of pop cultural referents fading as quickly as a television commercial or a movie trailer. References (URLs online) Websites (URLs online) A hyperlinked version of this chapter is at Ben Abell Benjamin F. Abell has been a professor of meteorology in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Saint Louis University (SLU) since 1962. He also volunteered as the sole meteorologist for St. Lou... ... Read more