This new edition of Harold Innis's essays, published on the occasion of his centenary, assembles his most significant and representative writing. Included are many of Innis's essays on cultural issues and economic development - subjects he explored throughout his life - that have not been readily accessible before.

At the start of his career Innis set out to explain the significance of price rigidities in the cultural, social, and political institutions of new countries; by the end of his intellectual journey he had become one of the most influential critics of modernity. The essays in this collection address a variety of themes, including the rise of industrialism and the expansion of international markets, staples trades, critical factors in Canadian development, metropolitanism and nationality, the problems of adjustment, the political economy of communications, the economics of cultural change, and...