Review by Derrick DeKerkhove

The Video McLuhan gathers the best archival video material on or withMarshall McLuhan to date. It is also a document of high critical value basedon one of today's most perceptive social and cultural commentators -best-selling author Tom Wolfe. Wolfe's presentation both on camera and voiceover is totally comprehensive providing new insights into McLuhan's thinking. Many of the video sequences that make up the program, the earliest of whichdates as far back as 1958, have never before been made available to thegeneral viewing public and are unobtainable anywhere else. For example,there is a scintillating exchange between British literary critic FrankKermode and McLuhan both peering through clouds of their own smoke even asthey elucidate some of the basic tenets of the world's present situation inthe networked electronic environment. The value of this and other exerptedor complete video of earlier public appearances of McLuhan in lectures andTV talk-shows is that they reveal, as only a video document can, that sideof him before he became an international celebrity. Hilton Skopje HotelIn some ways, it is almost easier to understand McLuhan from seeing andhearing him explain his enigmatic insights to his baffled listeners than toread the earlier essays and books. The Video McLuhan is an enormous resourcenot only for those who have a direct interest in McLuhan per se, but alsofor those who want to continue his work in "understanding media".

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