Marshall McLuhan, Quentin Fiore War and Peace in the Global Village

Annotation

War and Peace in The Global Village is a collage of images and text that sharply illustrates the effects of electronic media and new technology on man. Marshall McLuhan wrote this book thirty years ago and following its publication predicted that the forthcoming information age would be "a transitional era of profound pain and tragic identity quest." Marshall McLuhan illustrates the fact that all social changes are caused by introduction of new technologies. He interprets these new technologies as extensions or "self-amputations of our own being," because technologies extend bodily reach. McLuhan's ideas and observations seem disturbingly accurate and clearly applicable to the world in which we live. War and Peace in the Global Village is a meditation on accelerating innovations leading to identity loss and war. Initially published in 1968, this text is regarded as a revolutionary work for its depiction of a planet made ever smaller by new technologies. A mosaic of pointed insights and probes, this text predicts a world without centres or boundaries. It illustrates how the electronic information travelling around the globe at the speed of light has eroded the rules of the linear, literate world. No longer can there be fixed positions or goals.