“Until writing was invented, man lived in acoustic space: boundless, directionless, horizonless, in the dark of the mind, in the world of emotion, by primordial intuition, by terror. Speech is a social chart of this bog.”

Canadian philosopher

Herbert Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian philosopher and scholar, 1911 to 1980, whose work became central to media theory. Raised in Winnipeg, he studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of Cambridge, then taught English at universities in the United States and Canada before joining the University of Toronto in 1946. He remained there for the rest of his life and became widely known as the father of media studies. His writing and teaching focused on media, communication, and the way new forms of technology shape human thought and social life.