The Sixth Language: Learning a Living in the Internet Age [Hardcover]

Robert K. Logan (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 318 pages
• Publisher: Stoddart Pub (April 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0773732519
• ISBN-13: 978-0773732513
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #195,300 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert K. Logan is Professor Emeritus in physics at the U. of Toronto and Chief Scientist at the Strategic Innovation Lab (sLab) at the Ontario College of Art and Design. Logan has edited collections about Canadian politics (The Way Ahead for Canada and Canada's Third Option) based on his experiences as one of Pierre Trudeau's policy advisers. He has written about media and communications (The Alphabet Effect, The Fifth Language and The Sixth Language) based on his experience of collaborating and publishing with Marshall McLuhan. His book co-authored with McLuhan sits unpublished in the Canadian Archives in Ottawa, He has also written on the origin of language (The Extended Mind). Three new books are in the works at their respective publishers: Understanding New Media and What is Information based on work at the sLab and The Poetry of Physics based on a course of the same name that Logan has taught at U of T since 1971.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Welcome to the Internet Age, July 15, 2000

By 

sam (Toronto Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sixth Language: Learning a Living in the Internet Age (Hardcover)

Logan was a young colleague of Marshall McLuhan at University of Toronto and brings a richness of linkage between McLuhan's vision and its fruition in the internet age. While the book gives many practical overviews, it is more a book of comprehension than of instruction. The internet age is upon us, but many firms are not at the point of understanding "learning a living" as a concept. Logan's book provides the kinds of insights that are needed in organizations in order to move into the vast resources of the internet both in terms of knowledge and also in terms of languaging and communications with the WWW which is indeed the World Wide Web. We don't hear enough of homage to McLuhan for seeing what was coming though the scale of it was surely beyond his wildest imagination, but not the idea of it. Here we have Logan who had the privilege of working with McLuhan taking that vision to the next level of comprehension -- that is the being in it as so many are, and the implications in the workplace and the world at large. Perhaps I am a bit biased as I have met Logan and done mutual raves about the net (before I knew his credentials). It was fun. Baseball was also a great chat with this expatriate New Yorker.