SOURCE: "Rationality and the Informational Environment: A Reassessment of the Work of Harold Adams Innis," in Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d'études canadiennes, Vol. 22, No. 4, Winter, 1987-88, pp. 78-92.

In the following essay, Neill examines the significance of Innis's writings on communications and economics.

A NEW PERSPECTIVE

Harold Innis's message was not well communicated, because, in part, those who received it did not occupy a perceptual vantage point from which it could be understood. The consequence has been a multiplication of interpretations of Innis, many cited in R.F. Neill's intellectual biography,¹ others appearing since 1972 in the continuing flow of commentaries. None has captured Innis's fundamental insight into the nature and consequences of the informational environment of decision-making.

Over the past fifteen years, with no reference to Innis—perhaps because they have misunderstood him, perhaps because they have never heard of him—a number of...