The work of Marshall McLuhan—like the work of many noted intellectual explorers—owed as much to force of character as intellect. His restless energy, his impatience with dullness and routine, his delight in subverting cherished notions of both the right and the left, his showmanship, his old-fashioned piety, even his occasional flirtation with paranoia and superstition—these qualities shaped his thought.
His character was also distinctly Canadian, although he often railed against what he considered Canadian timidity and small-mindedness. The Victorian age lingered on the Canadian prairies where McLuhan grew up, and he never lost a sense of high purpose, a strenuous innocence,
