"Marshall McLuhan was one of the most controversial and original thinkers of our time. In The Mechanical Bride he combines social satire and cultural analysis with biting wit to tackle the absurdities and excesses of the advertising age. In a series of tongue-in-cheek, myth-busting essays, McLuhan provides a life-preserver for the consumer drowning in a sea of hype. Exposing the ambitions and nature of a culture consciously nutured by advertisers, he investigates the myths and social structures of Industral Man in the context of history, anthropology and shifting mores"--P. [4] of cover.