A sweeping, revisionist historical analysis of telecommunications networks, from the dawn of the republic to the 21st century.
Telecommunications networks are vast, intricate, hugely costly systems for exchanging messages and information-within cities and across continents. From the Post Office and the telegraph to today's internet, these networks have sown domestic division while also acting as sources of international power.
In Crossed Wires, Dan Schiller, who has conducted archival research on US telecommunications for more than forty years, recovers the extraordinary social history of the major network systems of the United States. Drawing on arrays of archival documents and secondary sources, Schiller reveals that this history has been shaped by sharp social and political conflict and is embedded in the larger history of an expansionary US political economy. Schiller argues that networks have enabled US imperialism through a a recurrent "American system" of cross-border communications. Three other key findings wind through the book. First, business users of networks--more than carriers, and certainly more than residential users--have repeatedly determined how telecommunications systems have developed. Second, despite their current importance for virtually every sphere of social life, networks have been consecrated above all to aiding the circulation of commodities. Finally, although the preferences of
executives and officials have broadly determined outcomes, these elites have repeatedly had to contend against the ideas and organizations of workers, social movement activists, and other reformers.
This authoritative and comprehensive revisionist history of US telecommunications argues that not technology but a dominative--and contested--political economy drove the evolution of this critical industry.
Industry Reviews
"Crossed Wires offers a stellar interplay and tension between the everyday experiences of American post and telecommunications users and laborers of those huge entities, set in stark relief with the political economy of those same institutions as they deployed their reach and power with local, state, federal, and on occasion international governments and institutions. Understanding posts and telecommunications in the historical context of political
economy is just as much about the workers, the users, and the public as about the politicians and the plutocrats. This book is brilliant and compelling. Let there be no doubt: Dan Schiller has penned a
masterpiece." -- James Schwoch, Northwestern University
"Every generation or so a radical analysis emerges that forever changes how we understand information and communication systems. Dan Schiller, among our greatest historians of telecommunications, has written such a book. His deeply researched and beautifully written social history challenges dominant perspectives on digital media and promises to reframe ongoing policy debates. To understand how our core digital infrastructures became so commercially
capturedDLand what's to be done to recover their democratic potentialDLwe all must engage with this magisterial book." -- Victor Pickard, University of Pennsylvania
"With impressive breadth, and magnificent empirical command, Dan Schiller surveys the history of telecommunications policy and practice in the United States. The sheer span of the narrative is striking enough; the detailed outline of the ways in which corporate interests (and the goals of an aggressively expanding American economy) framed and distorted American communications policies over the course of two centuries is breath-taking. This is a 'must-read' book
for all those striving to understand the contemporary pathologies (and prospects) of the American political system." -- Michael A. Bernstein, Provost Emeritus, Professor of Business, Economics, and
History, Stony Brook University-The State University of New York
"Grab a comfy chair and settle in for this magisterial work! Whether historicizing the early post office, public utilities, or digital routes, Schiller shows how a divided and power-laden society imprints network development and unearths the lively struggles that shaped US telecommunication. Crucial reading for understanding global network predicaments." -- Lisa Parks, Distinguished Professor of Media Studies, University of California-Santa Barbara
"Schiller offers a detailed history of American telecommunications that also reads like a long-form story, with quotes from leading players and details of power plays conducted among competing parties...Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals." -- Choice
