pThis provocative essay uses as a starting place the work of two towering figures in Canadian intellectual history Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan. Graeme Patterson questions conventional understanding of the thought of Innis and McLuhan and the relationship between their work.p pHistorians have generally considered communications an area distinct from and irrelevant to their own. Harold Innis is usually regarded as having moved from the field of Canadian history in his early work to non-Canadian history and communications. The distinction, Patterson suggests, is false both the early and the late work of Innis are in the field of communications and, indeed, so is the study of history itself.p pUsing nineteenth-century Upper Canadian political history as a focus, Patterson applies communications theory to such familiar subjects as the Family Compact, responsible government, and the rebellion of 1837, and shows how Canadian opinion was generated and shaped by media of communication. Bo