A quarter century ago, media guru McLuhan (d. 1980) wrote his famous Understanding Media. Now, in a posthumous volume cowritten by McLuhan's friend Powers (Communications Studies/Niagara U.), the premises of that work are updated. This collaboration stems from research undertaken by the authors at the Centre for Culture and Technology in Toronto. Their analysis of the worldwide impact of video-related technologies takes the myth of Narcissus (central to Understanding Media) a step further. McLuhan was struck by the fact that when men first went to the moon, we expected photographs of craters but, instead, the quintessential symbol of that adventure was the dramatic picture of earth—ourselves: "All of us who were watching had an enormous reflexive response. We 'outered' and 'innered' at the same time. We were on earth and the moon simultaneously." The authors refer to this kind of moment as a "resonating interval"—"the true action in the event was not on earth or on the moon, but rather in the airless void between. . ." In their analysis, this resonating interval represents an invisible borderline between visual and acoustic space. The distinction between the two "spaces" marks the major premise here, with visual space representing the old traditions of Western Civilization—left-brain-oriented, linear, quantitative reasoning—and acoustic space representing right-brain, pattern-producing, qualitative reasoning. Because of electronic communications, the authors believe, these two mind-sets are "slamming into each other at the speed of light." While most societies view themselves through the past, usually a century behind, present-day changes occur so rapidly that this "rearview mirror" doesn't work anymore. By use of what they call the "tetrad," the authors contend that they can postulate four stages in any invention or trend to determine what the final result will be—what it will "flip over" into (e.g., money flipped over to credit cards; the telephone to "ominpresence." as in teleconferencing; cable TV should flip over to home broadcasting; electronic-funds transfer should flip over to "an intense state of credit-worthiness as pure status"). Dense, heavily technological writing—but with the occasional insight that reminds us of what once brought such renown to McLuhan.
Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0195079108
Page Count: 244
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
BOOK REVIEW
Freelance journalist Shear arrestingly reconstructs a notably bad bargain the US struck with Japan during a period when, despite an immense trade deficit, Washington was willing to pay almost any price to keep the island nation on its side in the Cold War. Drawing on interviews with key players, a wealth of government documents, and contemporary news reports, Shear offers a tellingly detailed, chronological account of how Japan, after almost a decade of effort dating back to the early 1980s, largely got its way on the co-development of the FS-X, an experimental support fighter plane, for the country's militia-like defense forces. The resultant program, the author argues, could give Japan the advanced technology and know-how it needs to become a world-class competitor in aerospace/avionics markets long dominated by American suppliers like Boeing, General Dynamics, and McDonnell Douglas. While his worst-case scenario—that Japan will snatch a sizeable chunk of this crucial export business—remains to be proved, Shear does a fine job of explaining how the steely resolve of career bureaucrats and intra-agency conflicts can influence, even shape or deform, the policy judgments of elected legislators. He also contrasts the patient, end-in-view nationalism of Dai Nihon's single-minded mandarins with the tactical frenzies of US pols who, though not unmindful of economic consequences, tend to favor expedient solutions to epidemic problems. Covered as well are the commercial implications for American industry, whose decisive edge in state- of-the-art software may have been squandered in the cause of a patron/protÇgÇ alliance whose rationale has long since been overtaken by events. A cautionary tale that goes a long way toward clarifying why ``East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.'' (Author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-385-47353-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
An intriguing work of new ideas on the cutting edge of biology, though not for the uninitiated.
Lavishly illustrated examination of the theory of biological self-organization—territory unfamiliar to most.
The theory of self-organization is an attempt to answer the continuing and ancient question of how the organism develops from a solitary fertilized egg to achieve its final form in maturity. Pivar believes that biology as a discipline has no overarching theoretical principle to explain the process of ontological development. He begins with a detailed description of the tensile strength of the toroidal sphere and how that funnel bi-layer shape is an ideal flexible vessel designed to facilitate the progression from single cell to full-fledged organism. He posits that the specific pattern of development of the species is already encoded at the cellular level and elaborated through physical and chemical dynamic processes. While the genome can specify certain traits of the animal, it cannot account for the process of the developmental sequence of the emerging biological form. In a similar vein, he rejects the principle of random mutation or natural selection precisely because these Darwinian concepts stress the crucial input of the environment in promoting adaptive evolutionary change along a continuum. He describes and illustrates the developmental sequence of flora and fauna from the basic toroidal sphere, stating that every life form grows from the same hypothesized point of origin as the inner layer undergoes continuous embryological transformation that is specific to each animal, flower or insect. The presentation of the biological self-organization theory, unorthodox at best since it minimizes accepted doctrines in biology, is highly disorganized. By immediately discussing and defining the mechanical properties of the torus and more specifically the toroidal sphere, Pivar is launching the reader into highly unfamiliar–and often disorienting–territory, a situation worsened by liberal use of terminology that is discipline-dependent. It is only in the concluding chapters that the relation of the torus principle to ontological and philological development is clarified.
An intriguing work of new ideas on the cutting edge of biology, though not for the uninitiated.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 0-9749860-0-3
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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