telecommunications

This page offers perspectives on telecommunications and the 'internet revolution'. 

     geopolitics

Three historical perspectives are provided in Peter Hughill's Global Communications Since 1844: Geopolitics & Technology (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Uni Press 99), The Carrier Wave: New Information Technology & the Geography of Innovation, 1846-2003 (London, Unwin Hyman 88) by Peter Hall & Paschal Preston, and Brian Winston's excellent Media Technology & Society: A History from the Telegraph to the Internet (London, Routledge 99). 

Frances Cairncross' The Death of Distance (London, Orion 97) and Ithiel de Sola Pool - in Technologies of Freedom (Cambridge, Belknap 87) and Technologies Without Boundaries (Cambridge, Harvard Uni Press 90) - do an excellent job of placing the 'Internet Revolution' in context and teasing out implications. 

The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications & International Politics 1851-1945 (Oxford, Oxford Uni Press 91) is a thought-provoking study by Daniel Headrick. 

There's a more pessimistic view in The Global Political Economy of Communication: Hegemony, Telecommunications & the Information Economy (New York, St Martin's 94), essays edited by Edward Comer. The authors argue that the web and satellite broadcasting are the latest iterations of traditional communication conflicts. 

Technology has promised the abolition of distance and the globalisation of everyday life. Twice before - in 1865 with the creation of the International Telegraph Union and in 1906 with the creation of the Radiotelegraphy Union - international agreement to encourage and then to regulate new international communication technologies have marked the beginning of generation-long conflicts over the boundaries of new, larger (but certainly less-than-global) economic orders.

     visions and impacts

Tom Sandage's The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph & the 19th Century's On-line Pioneers (New York, Walker 98) is a popular history. We recommend instead Carolyn Marvin's When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking About Electric Communications in the Late 19th Century (New York, Oxford Uni Press 90) and William Dutton's Information & Communication Technologies: Visions & Realities (Oxford, Oxford Uni Press 96).

Michelle Martin's "Hello Central?" Gender, Technology, & Culture in the Formation of Telephone Systems (Montreal, McGill-Queen's Uni Press 91) should be read in conjunction with Edwin Gabler's The American Telegrapher: A Social History 1860-1900 (New Brunswick, Rutgers Uni Press 88). 

Claude Fischer's America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 (Berkeley, Uni of California Press 92) and James Katz' Connections: Social & Cultural Studies of the Telephone in American Life (New Brunswick, Transaction 00) are important studies of the wider social impact.

Ithiel de Sola Pool's Forecasting the Telephone: A Retrospective Technology Assessment (Norwood, Ablex 83) is a useful point of reference for assessing forecasts about e-commerce, WAP and other developments. Leonard Graziplene's Teletext: Its Promise & Demise (Bethlehem, LeHigh Uni Press 00) looks at a revolution that didn't arrive.

Pool's Politics in Wired Nations (New Brunswick, Transaction 98) is also recommended, in particular for its cogent exploration of government attempts to regulate what occurs on the Web and arrangements for standards that ensure the different networks and devices can continue to communicate with each other as one global network.

     national studies

For the US we recommend Pool's The Social Impact of the Telephone (Cambridge, MIT Press 77) and Menahem Blondheim's News Over The Wires: The Telegraph & the Flow of Public Information in America 1844-97 (Cambridge, Harvard Uni Press 94). 

Alan Stone's How America Got On-Line: Politics, Markets & the Revolution in Telecommunications (Armonk, Sharpe 97), Electronic Media & Government: The Regulation of Wireless & Wired Mass Communication in the United States (White Plains, Longman 95) by Leslie Smith & Milan Meeske, Telecommunication Policy for the Information Age: From Monopoly to Competition (Cambridge, Harvard Uni Press 94) by Gerald Brock and The Fall of the Bell System (Cambridge, Cambridge Uni Press 88) by Peter Temin offer insights into regulatory and market changes in the US. 

Neil Wasserman's From Invention to Innovation: Long-Distance Telephone Transmission at the Turn of the Century (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Uni Press 85) is a cogent study of innovation and economics. 

George David Smith's The Anatomy of a Business Strategy: Bell, Western Electric & the Origins of the American Telephone Industry (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Uni Press 85), Manufacturing the Future: A History of Western Electric (Cambridge, Cambridge Uni Press 99) by Stephen Adams & Orville Butler and Robert Garnet's The Telephone Enterprise: The Evolution of the Bell System’s Horizontal Structure 1876-1909 (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Uni Press 85) are more specialised.

For Australia consult Ann Moyal's exemplary Clear Across Australia: A History of Telecommunications (Melbourne, Nelson 84). Edgar Harcourt's Taming The Tyrant: The First 100 Years of Australia's International Telecommunications Service (Sydney, Allen & Unwin 87) and Kevin Livingstone's The Wired Nation Continent: The Communication Revolution & Federating Australia (Melbourne, Oxford Uni Press 96) are drier. 

For New Zealand Alex Wilson's Wire & Wireless: A History of Telecommunications in New Zealand 1860-1987 (Palmerston, Dunmore Press 94) is serviceable.

Robert Babe's Telecommunications in Canada: Technology, Industry & Government (Toronto, Uni of Toronto Press 90) is complemented by Dwayne Winseck's paper A Social History of Canadian Telecommunications.


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