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tvil 's review for:
The Victorian Internet
by Tom Standage
This is a fine overview of the development of the telegraph and the impact it had on the world. It’s a short and easy read, and offers several interesting anecdotes. It doesn’t delve too deeply into the material, however. If chapter 7, “Codes, Hackers, and Cheats”, appeals to you, I wholeheartedly recommend [b:The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography|17994|The Code Book The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography|Simon Singh|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1403181687s/17994.jpg|1031975], which covers the history of cryptography. If chapter 5, “Wiring the World”, was more interesting, [b:A Thread Across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable|410958|A Thread Across the Ocean The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable|John Steele Gordon|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1424356571s/410958.jpg|400223] looks promising (although I haven’t read it).
The book makes a solid enough case that the Internet wasn’t as revolutionary as we kids of today might think; in many ways, it was an improved telegraph network (at least until the so-called Web 2.0, which at any rate surfaced after this book was written), and many of its significant marks on mankind had already been made a century before. However, while the reader might be convinced by this by simply reading the history of the telegraph, the concluding chapter does a poor job at hammering the parallels home, covering the Internet and it’s similarities (and rarely the differences) very superficially.
Still, it’s a nice read if you’re interested in pre-digital communication technology, like I am.
The book makes a solid enough case that the Internet wasn’t as revolutionary as we kids of today might think; in many ways, it was an improved telegraph network (at least until the so-called Web 2.0, which at any rate surfaced after this book was written), and many of its significant marks on mankind had already been made a century before. However, while the reader might be convinced by this by simply reading the history of the telegraph, the concluding chapter does a poor job at hammering the parallels home, covering the Internet and it’s similarities (and rarely the differences) very superficially.
Still, it’s a nice read if you’re interested in pre-digital communication technology, like I am.