Forward Through the Rearview Mirror: Reflections on and by Marshall McLuhan

Communications thinker and prophet Marshall McLuhan gave us the phrases "the medium is the message" and "global village". Today, with the explosion of electronic technologies and on-line communication, his ideas are more relevant than ever. Forward Through the Rearview Mirror is an evocative and visually exciting exploration of McLuhan's life and work in the context of the information age. The book consists of short prose passages, aphorisms, interviews, letters, and dialogues by McLuhan—many never before published—interwoven with biographical text by his biographer Philip Marchand and commentary by such cultural critics as Louis Rossetto, Neil Postman, Camille Paglia, and Lewis Lapham.The book is organized into four parts: Global Village and Identity, Medium is the Message, and Extensions of Man. In keeping with McLuhan's style of speaking and writing, the text consists of a series of brief entries, ranging in length from a single line to a page. The entries have been selected and positioned so that they can be read consecutively as a narrative or randomly as individual ideas. Throughout, the material by McLuhan appears in a different typeface and color from the material by others, to make the two clearly distinguishable. Part book, part magazine, part storyboard, this multidimensional look at the ideas and life of the patron saint of Wired magazine will appeal to anyone interested in technology, contemporary thought, and popular culture.