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Network Nation : Inventing American Telecommunications - Richard R. John

Network Nation

Inventing American Telecommunications


Published: 18th May 2010
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RRP $106.99


The popularization of the telegraph and the telephone was opposed by business lobbies that were intent on perpetuating specialty services. In fact, it wasn't until 1900 that the civic ideal of mass access trumped the elitist ideal of exclusivity in shaping the commercialization of the telephone. The telegraph did not become widely accessible until 1910, sixty-five years after the first fee-for-service telegraph line opened in 1845.


This is a valuable book on the technological and economic trends that impacted the popularization of the telephone, one of the most profoundly significant inventions in the record of humanity. To understand the history of American telecommunications is to attend to the political economies at the time technological innovation occurred. John brilliantly articulates this context. Shifting municipal and federal sensibilities always shaped the diffusion of technologies, even in times where strong federal governmental oversight did not yet exist. The threat of federal and municipal government ownership of telecommunication systems was real, as seen in the case of the Bell system (and its failure). -- Jim Hahn Library Journal Could it be that Americans actually like communications monopolists? Do we want dominant firms to run our world? Richard R. John's splendid book helps to answer that question by telling us just where this American affection for info-monopoly came from. John has produced a detailed study of the grand-daddies of it all: AT&T and Western Union, the first great info-monopolists, whose role in communications history is similar to that of the Allosaurus and the T. Rex in the history of the animal kingdom. A work of careful history based on archival research, Network Nation begins with Samuel Morse's construction of the first electric telegraph line in 1844 and concludes with the establishment of AT&T (or Bell, a term that can be used interchangeably with AT&T) as America's regulated telephone monopoly...What Network Nation does deliver is a nuanced answer to the basic question, why monopoly? -- Tim Wu New Republic 20110609

List of Illustrations and Tablesp. vii
Introduction: Inventing American Telecommunicationsp. 1
Making a Neighborhood of a Nationp. 5
Professor Morse's Lightningp. 24
Antimonopolyp. 65
The New Postalic Dispensationp. 114
Rich Man's Mailp. 156
The Talking Telegraphp. 200
Telephomaniap. 238
Second Naturep. 269
Gray Wolvesp. 311
Universal Servicep. 340
One Great Medium?p. 370
Epilogue: The Technical Millenniump. 407
Chronology of American Telecommunicationsp. 415
Notesp. 425
Acknowledgmentsp. 501
Indexp. 505
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

ISBN: 9780674024298
ISBN-10: 067402429X
Audience: Professional
Format: Hardcover
Language: English
Number Of Pages: 528
Published: 18th May 2010
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Dimensions (cm): 24.0 x 16.3  x 4.01
Weight (kg): 0.9