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ameyawarde's review against another edition
5.0
I loved this, and wish it was longer! I might buy a copy just to chuck at people's heads when they make ignorant remarks about social media. This is a great book to show that social media in one form or another has been around as long as writing has, and that includes "oversharing" personal life details with others/the public as well.
bookherd's review against another edition
4.0
This is a great book. I learned so much about the different ways people have historically acquired and shared information since the days of the Roman Empire. We like to think that we're pioneers in inventing and using social media, but Standage shows us that people have been doing much the same thing (even fomenting revolution) with whatever technology they had to hand for a very long time. An example that I thought was especially striking is the story Standage tells about telegraph operators forming a kind of online community among themselves. Operators who never met each other, who were stationed thousands of miles away from each other, would chat or play chess over the telegraph wires when there weren't any messages to transmit. Some people who were stationed in remote areas even came to prefer interacting with their online community of telegraph operators than with the people in their own physical locale.
The book has an extensive bibliography and is engagingly written.
The book has an extensive bibliography and is engagingly written.
medievalthymes's review against another edition
2.0
2 stars
The premise of this book was interesting — the idea that some form of social media (or in better terms, the spread of information imo would have been a better description, though less catchy) has existed throughout history — and i’ll admit it had some decent research to it, but for a book that claims to look at social media in the past 2,000 years, the author makes his argument through a very white, male, narrow lens of history when there were so many opportunities he should branched out from that narrative.
For example, he starts us off with setting the stage with ancient Rome and how news and media circulated in antiquity, but after the fall of Rome, he immediately jumps into medieval Europe; briefly talks about the “Dark Ages” (my medieval professor would have probably dnf’ed the book at that one term tbh) and then jumps immediately to the 14th century after literacy in the west starts to pick up again. This is a missed opportunity in my opinion — that he didn’t even bring up the Islamic Golden Age, which would have a natural way to bridge the gap between the two chapters — it would strengthen his timeline and wouldn’t dismiss everything the east achieved in that time. He would have also been able to go more in-depth on how that knowledge impacted education and learning in Europe through their influence and connection to the West through Spain at the time. Though there may have been a few throw away lines sprinkled here and there about it, the dismissive nature of it left a bad taste in my mouth, especially when the east was a big influence of learning in the medieval world. If he simply wanted to talk about the West, he should have narrowed his topic and thesis. You can’t say you’re going to explore media, the spread of information, and information technology throughout two thousand years of history and then only talk about a very specific viewpoint of history. It doesn’t work that way.
Other than that, I found some of his connections to his thesis weak at points and again, felt like they could have been strengthened by narrowing his thesis — his idea’s and connections felt all over the place.
The author is not a historian by profession from what I understand, so I applaud him on his research skills, because the meat of the information was interesting for the most part, but his structure and thesis of needed to be tighter and better thought out.
The premise of this book was interesting — the idea that some form of social media (or in better terms, the spread of information imo would have been a better description, though less catchy) has existed throughout history — and i’ll admit it had some decent research to it, but for a book that claims to look at social media in the past 2,000 years, the author makes his argument through a very white, male, narrow lens of history when there were so many opportunities he should branched out from that narrative.
For example, he starts us off with setting the stage with ancient Rome and how news and media circulated in antiquity, but after the fall of Rome, he immediately jumps into medieval Europe; briefly talks about the “Dark Ages” (my medieval professor would have probably dnf’ed the book at that one term tbh) and then jumps immediately to the 14th century after literacy in the west starts to pick up again. This is a missed opportunity in my opinion — that he didn’t even bring up the Islamic Golden Age, which would have a natural way to bridge the gap between the two chapters — it would strengthen his timeline and wouldn’t dismiss everything the east achieved in that time. He would have also been able to go more in-depth on how that knowledge impacted education and learning in Europe through their influence and connection to the West through Spain at the time. Though there may have been a few throw away lines sprinkled here and there about it, the dismissive nature of it left a bad taste in my mouth, especially when the east was a big influence of learning in the medieval world. If he simply wanted to talk about the West, he should have narrowed his topic and thesis. You can’t say you’re going to explore media, the spread of information, and information technology throughout two thousand years of history and then only talk about a very specific viewpoint of history. It doesn’t work that way.
Other than that, I found some of his connections to his thesis weak at points and again, felt like they could have been strengthened by narrowing his thesis — his idea’s and connections felt all over the place.
The author is not a historian by profession from what I understand, so I applaud him on his research skills, because the meat of the information was interesting for the most part, but his structure and thesis of needed to be tighter and better thought out.
dmturner's review against another edition
5.0
"[S]ocial media is not new. It has been around for centuries. Today, blogs are the new pamphlets. Microblogs and online social networks are the new coffee houses. Media-sharing sites are the new commonplace books. They are all shared, social platforms that enable ideas to travel from one person to another, rippling through networks of people connected by social bonds, rather than having to squeeze through the privileged bottleneck of broadcast media. The rebirth of social media in the Internet age represents a profound shift—and a return, in many respects, to the way things used to be."
A delightful read. Clear, interesting, thorough, and well organized.
A delightful read. Clear, interesting, thorough, and well organized.
heather01602to60660's review against another edition
3.0
Wow, that's a lot of history packed into a little package. I will admit I'm not a big history buff, so I found myself skimming large chunks at times. Some bits were truly fascinating, some not so much for me.
The overall idea being that while we're all excited about the "new" implications of the Internet and social media for idea sharing, we're ignoring the fact that for most of history all information sharing was "social media" in some form or other, and that mass media's one-way pushing of information is a fairly recent turn of events.
The overall idea being that while we're all excited about the "new" implications of the Internet and social media for idea sharing, we're ignoring the fact that for most of history all information sharing was "social media" in some form or other, and that mass media's one-way pushing of information is a fairly recent turn of events.
thomcat's review against another edition
4.0
Tom Standage compares the modern world to the historical, exploring the many parallels. This book looks at self publishing, from letters to pamphlets to blogs, each used as a force for social change in time. Each is also used for propaganda - fake news.
Various sections look at social media in various historical times, drawing parallels with today. One section (on the telegraph) returns to the subject of his first book - [b:The Victorian Internet|52853|The Victorian Internet|Tom Standage|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1420563801s/52853.jpg|51545]. This is just one cord in the net work of this historical survey, which I found quite interesting. In many ways, this history reminds me of Connections and The Day the Universe Changed by [a:James Burke|5809626|James Burke|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png].
Various sections look at social media in various historical times, drawing parallels with today. One section (on the telegraph) returns to the subject of his first book - [b:The Victorian Internet|52853|The Victorian Internet|Tom Standage|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1420563801s/52853.jpg|51545]. This is just one cord in the net work of this historical survey, which I found quite interesting. In many ways, this history reminds me of Connections and The Day the Universe Changed by [a:James Burke|5809626|James Burke|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png].
leaton01's review against another edition
4.0
I'm a fan of Tom Standage's work. He captures history in some rather fascinating ways and connects it to the everyday life of people in unexpected ways. Writing On the Wall is no different and of course, more dear to my heart as he meticulously traces the history of the characteristics of social media far back to ancient times. He identifies the various ways in which humans use and engage with social media today (along with the how the mainstream culture questions, values, and devalues these exchanges) and finds their historical analogues. We find Circero telling his informers to write him letters even when there is nothing new to write as well as the graffiti-laden walls of ancient cities, not just filled with irrelevant messages but advertisements, lovers' exchanges, and other content that holds meaning. It is an argument that I greatly appreciate since I also see that though there is change of format, there has not necessarily a change in the style, approach, and meaning of human exchange.
If you enjoyed this review, feel free to check out my other reviews and writings at By Any Other Nerd/
If you enjoyed this review, feel free to check out my other reviews and writings at By Any Other Nerd/