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The Victorian Internet
 
 
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The Victorian Internet (Paperback)

by Tom Standage (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Phoenix; New edition edition (1 April 1999)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0753807033
  • ISBN-13: 978-0753807033
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.2 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 99,459 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #14 in  Books > Business, Finance & Law > Law > Scots Law > Commercial, Financial, Industrial & Taxation > Communication
    #57 in  Books > History > World History > 1751-1900

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

Imagine an almost instantaneous communication system that would allow people and governments all over the world to send and receive messages about politics, war, illness and family events. The US Government has tried and failed to control it and its revolutionary nature is trumpeted loudly by its backers. The Internet? Nope, the humble telegraph fit this bill way back in the 1800s. The parallels between the now-ubiquitous Internet and the telegraph are amazing, offering insight into the ways new technologies can change the very fabric of society within a single generation. In The Victorian Internet, Tom Standage examines the history of the telegraph, beginning with a horrifically funny story of a mile-long line of monks holding a wire and getting simultaneous shocks in the interest of investigating electricity and ending with the advent of the telephone. All the early "online" pioneers are here: Samuel Morse, Thomas Edison and a seemingly endless parade of code-makers, entrepreneurs and spies who helped ensure the success of this communications revolution. Fans of Longitude will enjoy another story of the human side of dramatic technological developments, complete with personal rivalry, vicious competition and agonising failures. --Therese Littleton, Amazon.com


Product Description

Beginning with the Abbe Nollet's famous experiment of 1746, when he successfully demonstrated that electricity could pass from one end to the other of a chain of two hundred monks, Tom Standage tells the story of the spread of the telegraph and its transformation of the Victorian world. The telegraph was greeted by all the same concerns, hype, social panic and excitement that now surround the Internet, and Standage provides both a fascinating insight into the past and a context in which to think rather differently of today's concerns. Standage has a wonderful prose style and an excellent eye for the telling and engaging story. Popular history at its best.
Inside This Book (Learn More)
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

11 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.8 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Past and future, 23 Nov 2005
By Kurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (London, SW1) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
The title of this book, 'The Victorian Internet,' refers to the 'communications explosion' that took place with the advent and expansion of telegraph wire communications. Prior to this, communication was notoriously slow, particularly as even postal communications were subject to many difficulties and could take months for delivery (and we complain today of the 'allow five days' statements on our credit cards billings!).

The parallels between the Victorian Internet and the present computerised internet are remarkable. Information about current events became relatively instantaneous (relative, that is, to the usual weeks or months that it once took to receive such information). There were skeptics who were convinced that this new mode of communication was a passing phase that would never take on (and, in a strict sense, they were right, not of course realising that the demise of the telegraph system was not due to the reinvigoration of written correspondence but due to that new invention, the telephone). There were hackers, people who tried to disrupt communications, those who tried to get on-line free illegally, and, near the end of the high age of telegraphing, a noticeable slow-down in information due to information overload (how long is this page going to take to download?? isn't such a new feeling after all).

The most interesting chapter to me is that entitled 'Love over the Wires' which begins with an account of an on-line wedding, with the bride in Boston and the groom in New York. This event was reported in a small book, Anecdotes of the Telegraph, published in London in 1848, which stated that this was 'a story which throws into the shade all the feats that have been performed by our British telegraph.' This story is really one of love and adventure, as the bride's father had sent the young groom away for being unworthy to marry his daughter, but on a stop-over on his way to England, he managed to get a magistrate and telegraph operator to arrange the wedding. The marriage was deemed to be legally binding.

A very interesting and remarkable story that perhaps would have been forgotten by history had history not set out to repeat itself with our modern internet.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An absolutely brilliant true history - of Telegraphy, 16 Oct 2002
By Michael H (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
Victorian Internet is a wonderful book - I absolutely recommend it to anyone with the remotest interest in how science has shaped out world. It describes the emergence of a technology which is hailed at its outset as "shrinking the world" and able to "connect distant parts of the world instantly" - sound familiar ?

But this is the fascinating tale of Telegraphy - which - incredibly - pre-dates electricity itself, having begun in Napoleon's time as a mechanical way of signalling from hilltop tower to hilltop tower - for wartime messaging. Electricity of course made it "fly", and the tale is told rivetingly, with intruiguiing comparisons between the telegraph of a century ago and the internet of today. All the same human issues are there - down-the-wire romances between operators - hackers - and amazing technological misunderstanding (like the mother who took a plate of fresh food to a telegraph office, in the hope of sending it down the wire to her son, who was fighting at the front in the Crimea). Amazing - and a perfect Christmas present for every Net-Head, too. Well done Tom Standage.

Mike Holt

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing account of a vanished world, 17 Jan 2002
By ricard@ants.upc.es (Barcelona, Spain) - See all my reviews
This is a fascinating book. I couldn't stop reading it until I finished it. I tells the story of a key event that shaped our today's wired world: the emergence of the first real communication network, the rise of new social and economic relations and the enormous expectations that it generated. It is fascinating to see how many similarities are shared with the current growth and evolution of Internet. Really worth reading.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent story of an almost forgotten invention that changed the world
The telegraph has been all but forgotten in the modern era of communications, but in its day, it was a revolution. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Fred

5.0 out of 5 stars An entertaining historical perspective
We often tend to view our own time not only as the peak of the development, but by far surpassing achievements of the past. Read more
Published on 7 May 2002

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining, amusing, lacks financial dimension
I enjoyed this diverting book, which covers the technical development and social impact of telegraphic communication. Read more
Published on 28 Aug 2001 by Mr. Jonathan Headland

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for every Internet/DTV professional
A great book for all those who believe that you cannot predict the future (including theirs) without knowing the past.
Published on 28 Nov 1999 by d.vayenas@city.ac.uk

4.0 out of 5 stars Puts modern communication into perspective
A fascinating book that explodes the theory that we are in a period of communication innovation. If you thought 'netiquette', 'flaming' and 'newbies' were a new concept then you... Read more
Published on 8 Jun 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars The telegraph: a Victorian 'information revolution'.
Technology journalist Tom Standage argues, convincingly, that the Victorians would be unsurprised by our Internet, as the electric century telegraph system already had many of... Read more
Published on 30 Mar 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars A fantastic read from start to finish
This book is a brilliant look at telegraphy and its forebears. It delves into the lives of the people involved, their triumphs and failures (the laying of undersea cables sticks... Read more
Published on 15 Mar 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating and eadily read book.
Tom Standage has succeeded at what could have been a very tricky task. He has written a book about a Victorian invention that is now obsolete and made it very readable and... Read more
Published on 15 Mar 1999

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