The importance of this book cannot be overestimated. Its timing alone is impeccable. The book’s publication comes at a time of global meltdown in numerous related fi elds – political, economic and environmental. The forces at work in each of these arenas are underpinned by the dialectic, power, and the needs of instant communications. The demands of state and corporate vested interests on the one hand are desperately seeking to control how we know what we know, whilst on the other hand the awakening of popular conscience is inspired by the transparency and accountability afforded by the possibilities of the information highway. No part of any continent can be untouched by these movements. We have arrived at the ‘global village’, a phrase coined by the Canadian philosopher and Professor of English Marshall McLuhan. More than forty years before the development of the World Wide Web, he had foreseen the ramifi cations of the electronic era. McLuhan popularized the idea that our technologies have a profound effect upon our lives, culture and history. His works, Understanding Media (1964) 1 and The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962) 2 explored concepts which are popularly remembered in the well- worn adage ‘the medium is the message’. A sequel to this became ‘the medium is the massage’. The later book’s opening chapter contains these poignantly prophetic words: The medium, or process, of our time – electric technology – is reshaping and restructuring patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal life. It is forcing us to reconsider and re- evaluate practically every thought, every action and every institution formerly taken for granted. 3