The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-Line Pioneers

from m.belljackson

Enjoyable tale of early ingenuity in sending messages long distances moves into great detail on development and final adoption of the electric telegraph. Though often slow moving, writing picks up when transatlantic cables are attempted. That the telegraph did not develop into the promise of be...

from lauriebrown54

While the term 'Victorian Internet' conjures up visions of a steampunk alternate history, the invention and spread of the telegraph system in the 19th century had much the same effect on society then as the internet has had in our own time. It turned a world where messages took weeks to cross the...

from jaygheiser

The most effective way to demonstrate a parallelism is to describe the unfamiliar in such a way that its similarity to the familiar is obvious. Standage's short but effective history of the telegraph's initial period of rapid growth resonates with today's reader. Only in his concluding two-page e...

from Stbalbach

The Victorian Internet was published in 1998 at the height of the Internet's new popularity. At the time I thought an analogy with telegraphy seemed like a cheap gimmick and so I didn't read it - anyway I was too busy working at an Internet company. Now many editions later, including an introduct...

from eglinton

A well-explained and coherent account of an unsuspected community of practice, and another welcome rehabilitation of the energy, dynamism and inventiveness of the Victorian era from the assumptions of it as an era of stifling, dour conformity. The story of the telegraph's viral spread and impact ...