However modern the master, he must build on the thought of the past; and the most modern of masters can usually be shown to belong to some well-defined tradition. This, Jonathan Miller believes, is particularly true of Marshall McLuhan. Tunnelling through McLuhan's medium into his message, he finds... But the reader must be free to follow Miller's intellectual detective story to its appropriate, paradoxical end. 'I can still recall', he concludes, 'the intense excitement with which I first read McLuhan in 1960. Not that I remember a single observation which I now hold to be true, nor indeed a single theory which even begins to hold water. And yet, as a result of reading him...' As well as writing about McLuhan, Jonathan Miller has recently directed several plays (including The Merchant of Venice and The Tempest) and a film. He is also well known for his part in the famous review Beyond the Fringe; for his film of Alice in Wonderland; and as a TV director and editor. He has contributed to a wide variety of periodicals including the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books. But all Miller's many activities (he was trained as a doctor and is a member of the Royal Society study group in non-verbal communication) are guided by one - a passion for ideas and their ancestry, as his book clearly shows.