I read one defense of his lack of evidence which argued that he came from the humanist tradition (he was an English professor) which does not rely on the scientific methods of hypothesis and experimentation, etc. What's more, some of his claims, without a good understanding of the context, can be taken as quite racist. Come one man! Where's the citation? You expect me to believe the outrageous claims you're making with no proof? I felt like I was reading cult literature at times.

He'll write something like 'a study was conducted in Canada a few years back in which X happened,' and then use that as solid proof that X is universal. When he does offer evidence it is often anecdotal, with no reference to anything concrete. At times he makes big claims with absolutely no evidence to support them. The scholarship in this book is embarrassingly sloppy. Sometimes while reading it I was unsure if I was reading the profound thoughts of a genius that was above my comprehension, the ramblings of a mad man, or just the drivel of a hack who thought he was a lot more clever than he actually was. Lots of intriguing ideas, but presented with vague language and very little supporting evidence.

In a new introduction to this edition of Understanding Media, Harper's editor Lewis Lapham reevaluates McLuhan's work in the light of the technological as well as the political and social changes that have occurred in the last part of this century.

In effect, media now begs to be redefined. There has been a notable resurgence of interest in McLuhan's work in the last few years, fueled by the recent and continuing conjunctions between the cable companies and the regional phone companies, the appearance of magazines such as WiRed, and the development of new media models and information ecologies, many of which were spawned from MIT's Media Lab.

Terms and phrases such as 'the global village' and 'the medium is the message' are now part of the lexicon, and McLuhan's theories continue to challenge our sensibilities and our assumptions about how and what we communicate. This reissue of Understanding Media marks the thirtieth anniversary (1964-1994) of Marshall McLuhan's classic expose on the state of the then emerging phenomenon of mass media.

Understanding media by marshall mcluhan