SOURCE: "Harold Adams Innis—An Appraisal," in Culture, Communication, and Dependency: The Tradition of H. A. Innis, William H. Melody, Liora Salter, Paul Heyer, eds., Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1981, pp. 13-25.

In the following essay, Creighton assesses Innis's education, career, and achievements.

Some little time ago, the head of one of the University of Toronto's new colleges put a sudden and very general question to me. What, he said in effect, is the importance of Harold Innis? I must admit that I was surprised and slightly annoyed by this abrupt inquiry and I made no serious attempt to answer it. I might have replied that Harold Innis had been the Head of the Department of Political Economy and the Dean of the Graduate School, that his published works in history and political economy numbered more than a dozen, that he had sat on several Royal Commissions and that his...