Peoples Network - The Political Economy of the Telephone in the Gilded AgePevná vazba
The Bell System dominated telecommunications in the United States and Canada for most of the twentieth century, but its monopoly was not inevitable. In the decades around 1900, ordinary…
Specifikacia Peoples Network - The Political Economy of the Telephone in the Gilded AgePevná vazba
The Bell System dominated telecommunications in the United States and Canada for most of the twentieth century, but its monopoly was not inevitable. In the decades around 1900, ordinary citizens--farmers, doctors, small-town entrepreneurs--established tens of thousands of independent telephone systems, stringing their own wires to bring this new technology to the people. Managed by opportunists and idealists alike, these small businesses were motivated not only by profit but also by the promise of open communication as a weapon against monopoly capital and for protection of regional autonomy. As the Bell empire grew, independents fought fiercely to retain control of their local networks and companies--a struggle with an emerging corporate giant that has been almost entirely forgotten.The People's Network reconstructs the story of the telephone's contentious beginnings,