The Technological Imperative in Canada: An Intellectual History

Technology is and has always been the subject of critical debate. This wide-ranging, engaging book examines the ideas of Anglo-Canadian theorists who saw technology as a new imperative that would either enhance or threaten the moral imperative and Canadian identity. From the mid-nineteenth century onward, advocates argued that technology, as a moral force, would strengthen the ties that bound Canada to Britain and Western civilization, while opponents saw technology as a source of American power that threatened Canadian independence. The Technological Imperative in Canada offers new insights into the ideas of influential Canadian intellectuals such as Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, and George Grant and introduces readers to lesser-known but key theorists such as George Sidney Brett, Sandford Fleming, Thomas Keefer, Stephen Leacock, and Ursula Franklin. It shows how well-known individuals who are not considered theorists of technology, such as William Lyon Mackenzie King and Northrop Frye, offered important insights into the subject, and it explores perceptions of technology among literary figures such as Thomas Haliburton, Frederick Philip Grove, Archibald Lampman, Dennis Lee, and E.J. Pratt. Highly original, this book revises the entrenched notion that Anglo-Canadian thought has been dominated by the moral imperative.