Based on the original 1951 edition by Canadian professor and author of seminal works on media, communication theory, and Canadian economic history, Harold A. Innis (d. 1952). Innis explores the role of media in shaping the culture and development of civilizations. He argued that a balance between oral and written forms of communication contributed to the flourishing of Greek civilization in the 5th century BC. But in this ever-relevant work he predicted much of what is going on today and warned that Western civilization is now imperiled by powerful, advertising-driven media obsessed by "present-mindedness" and the "continuous, systematic, ruthless destruction of elements of permanence essential to cultural activity."