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The article profiles Harold Adams Innis, who has been elected as the president of the American Economic Association. Innis was born on November 5, 1894, near the village of Otterville in southwestern Ontario. He graduated from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, in 1916. After that, Innis served overseas and was wounded. Later, Innis won his Master of Arts degree at McMaster in 1918, and went to Chicago for higher studies and research. Innis was appointed to the staff of the University of Toronto in 1920, as a lecturer in the department of political economy. He spent almost entire of his professional career at the University of Toronto. Innis gave much thought to the role of the University and dangers that beset it. Its role, he believed, was crucial for western civilization; anything that endangered it threatened that civilization. Innis has been a scholar of tremendous industry. Not content with books and documents, he traveled all over the Dominion to get the feel of the economic life that is often featured in his writings.