<jats:p>While Harold Innis' address at le Collège de France in 1951 has recently begun to draw some attention, the circumstances surrounding Innis' brief appearance in France remain obscure, and the meaning and significance of the address have yet to be explored in any detail. This article seeks to provide context to Innis' talk by examining his long-standing "French inflection." It also examines the address itself, not only in terms of its themes and concerns, but also as a performative bid to find common ground with others (including the Annales School) who were challenging emergent monopolies of knowledge about the history of civilization. The presentation provides a point of entry into a final phase of Innis' intellectual life that has been overlooked, namely, his efforts to generate a community of like-minded interlocutors who were opposed to particular currents of thought that had become ascendant in the post-war period.</jats:p>