Annotated Contents Part I Culture as Business 1. “American Advertising”: reprinted from Horizon (October 1947). A pivotal piece in McLuhan’s scholarly life in which he treats popular culture seriously, if somewhat ironically. This essay leads directly to The Mechanical Bride (1951), a work of cultural anthropology examining the value system of North America through the business of advertising. “American Advertising” marks the beginning of the serious study of mass media. 2. The Mechanical Bride: “Preface,” “The Mechanical Bride,” and “From Da Vinci to Holmes,” reprinted from The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man (1951). A book widely noticed in 1951 (e.g., by Time magazine) as an intellectually engaging and entertaining study of a subject normally thought frivolous or trivial. McLuhan later perceived a too-concentrated focus on the content of the ads that nevertheless afforded him scope for social criticism and some witty insightful wordplay in deconstructing the ads. 3. “Culture Is Our Business”: reprinted from the book of the same title (1970). The money-making ethos of North American advertising is examined in this continuation of serious interest in popular culture and the arts. In respect to the growth of our mass consumer society, McLuhan reminds us that even T.S.Eliot once addressed 14,000 people in a sports stadium. This book traces the truth about North American culture—its obsession with business. (Curiously, this book was hastened through the publication process so rapidly that the author never got to proofread it or correct errors. It is reproduced here as first printed, errors intact.) 4. “Joyce, Mallarmé, and the Press”: reprinted from The Interior Landscape: The Literary Criticism of Marshall McLuhan, edited by Eugene McNamara (1969). This prescient essay, which originally appeared in the Sewanee Review, 1953, marries the most serious literary considerations with the study of mass media. It is an excellent example of McLuhan’s ability to find serious meaning in contemporary culture. The collected essays, often ignored by critics, are a stunning