Communications and History: Theories of Media, Knowledge, and Civilization

by Paul Heyer

Overview

This innovative volume selectively assesses three centuries of inquiry into the role of communications in the history of civilization. It challenges the conventional assumption that inquiry into the human consequences of living in a communications-dominated age began in the middle of the twentieth century as a response to omnipresent technology. Beginning with the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, Heyer shows how scholars as well known as Rousseau and as obscure as Monboddo were concerened with the historical dimension of aspects of social communication. Heyer approaches his subject as a problem in intellectual history and social thought, includes major twentieth-century thinkers who deal with the communications/history question, and concludes his study with an appraisal of the work of several contemporary researchers who have attempted detailed studies of specific media or historical periods.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313261572
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	03/25/1988
Series:	Contributions to the Study of Mass Media and Communications , #10
Pages:	218
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.56(d)
Lexile:	1490L (what's this?)

About the Author

PAUL HEYER is Associate Professor of Communication at Simon Fraser University, Burbanaby, British Columbia, Canada.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction: Mapping an Unacknowledged Tradition
The Eighteenth Century
Enlightenment Foundations
Communications and Universal History
Jean-Jacques Rousseau on Language and Writing
The Nineteenth Century
The Establishment of Linguistics and the History of Writing
Social Evolution and Social Theory
Edward Tylor, Anthropology, Culture-History, and Communications
The Twentieth Century
Archaelogy, Technology and Civilization
The Canadian Connection I: Harold Innis
The Canadian Connection II: Marshall McLuhan
History and Discourse: Michel Foucault
Conclusion: Current Directions
Bibliography
Index