Political economy in the western world will be compelled to broaden its range and to discuss the implications of competition between languages, religions and cultural phenomena largely neglected by it. 1 Innis' 1946 statement holds revolutionary implications for political theory, especially regarding "the significance of communications to the problem of empire." 2 Its broad social reach reflects a continuity and coherence in the problems Innis studied, the methods he used and the multi-factoral ecological approach he foreshadowed. In his last work, Empire and Communications, Innis wrote that he had been "influenced by a phenomenon strikingly evident" in his early study of "Canadian economic history [and] the French, British, and American empires." 3 1