Status
Available
Genres
Publication
Berkley Publishing Group (1999), Edition: Reprint, 227 pages
Description
The Victorian Internet tells the colorful story of the telegraph's creation and remarkable impact, and of the visionaries, oddballs, and eccentrics who pioneered it, from the eighteenth-century French scientist Jean-Antoine Nollet to Samuel F. B. Morse and Thomas Edison. The electric telegraph nullified distance and shrank the world quicker and further than ever before or since, and its story mirrors and predicts that of the Internet in numerous ways.
Media reviews
Library Journal
"an engaging and readable account of the invention, growth, and decline of the telegraph. "
User reviews
LibraryThing member 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
Show More
epilogue does he feel the need to explicitly draw a parallel between the telegraph and the Internet. Outside of the current fascination with the Internet economy, this is still a fascinating and thought-provoking book. The quantum change in human communication capabilities was the first utilization of electricity and wire--everything since then has been a refinement. Learning that a young Tom Edison lived on huge amounts of weak coffee and apple pie, its easy for the reader to envision him as an early hacker, endangering his health with the 19th century equivalent of Jolt Cola and Twinkies. This book is equally enjoyable to anyone who enjoys the history of technology, and those who have a more specific interest in the Internet and want to learn what lessons a historical high-tech boom can offer. A quick & enjoyable read. I accept the author's contention that 1) the Internet today parallels the 19th c. telegraph network, 2) the telegraph represented a significantly more dramatic change. Show Less
LibraryThing member andreablythe
The Victorian Internet tells the story of the telegraph. When the telegraph was invented and popularized it opened up the world to such an extent that its influence was comparable to the internet, changing the way information is received and distributed, the way business and governments operated,
It was a new kind of communication and, at least for its operators, it allowed the kind of open conversing that appears in chat rooms, in which every individual can speak up in democratic manner. Operators even found themselves naming people across the country, whom they've never met, as closer friends than the living breathing people in their lives (sounds familiar).
This book was a fun, quick read that made me reassess my assumptions about telegraphic communication.
Show More
and even the way individuals carried on relations. It was a new kind of communication and, at least for its operators, it allowed the kind of open conversing that appears in chat rooms, in which every individual can speak up in democratic manner. Operators even found themselves naming people across the country, whom they've never met, as closer friends than the living breathing people in their lives (sounds familiar).
This book was a fun, quick read that made me reassess my assumptions about telegraphic communication.
Show Less
LibraryThing member 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
This is fun, well written and interesting narrative history. It is also a lesson how disruptive technology can be, yet also how fleeting and soon forgotten. Telegraphy was a central part of everyone's life but with the telephone it was gone (though not overnight). How long will the Internet last? The telegraph was dominate for about 40 years. The Internet has been a part of mass culture since about 1992 (invention of the web browser and deregulation of the backbone for commercial use) or only about 20 years.
Show More
introduction by the father of the Internet Vince Cerf, I discovered it's real strength is not to dwell on telegraphy versus the Internet, rather to use the context of the Internet as a gateway for understanding telegraphy. It allows for understanding an aspect of the Industrial Revolution from about 1840 to 1870 in a personal way because it was so similar to the Internet revolution of our own time. Standage doesn't tell us they are similar, he doesn't need to. Although the technologies are different, the cultural impacts are nearly identical, people don't change. Indeed the telegraph probably had a more profound change on culture in the 19th century then the Internet in the 21st (although the Internet story is not over). This is fun, well written and interesting narrative history. It is also a lesson how disruptive technology can be, yet also how fleeting and soon forgotten. Telegraphy was a central part of everyone's life but with the telephone it was gone (though not overnight). How long will the Internet last? The telegraph was dominate for about 40 years. The Internet has been a part of mass culture since about 1992 (invention of the web browser and deregulation of the backbone for commercial use) or only about 20 years.
Show Less
LibraryThing member airship
Dinged a half a star only because I think the author is being too conservative when he compares the effect of the telegraph on the 19th century to the impact of the Internet today. In my mind, the telegraph was even more disruptive in its day than the Internet has been.
Think about it - the Internet
Tom Standage does a great job of laying out the history of the telegraph's development and implementation, and exploring just how disruptive it was. (Did you know that people even got married over the telegraph?)
An excellent book, and well worth reading.
By the way, my father and grandfather were both railroad telegraphers, and card-carrying members of the ORT (Order of Railroad Telegraphers). Today I proudly own and display my father's telegraph 'bug'.
Think about it - the Internet
Show More
debuted in an age when we already had telephones, radio, TV, and many other tools of instant mass communication. When the telegraph came into use, it was new, and all by itself. Suddenly information was instantaneous. It was a hugely disruptive technology.Tom Standage does a great job of laying out the history of the telegraph's development and implementation, and exploring just how disruptive it was. (Did you know that people even got married over the telegraph?)
An excellent book, and well worth reading.
By the way, my father and grandfather were both railroad telegraphers, and card-carrying members of the ORT (Order of Railroad Telegraphers). Today I proudly own and display my father's telegraph 'bug'.
Show Less
LibraryThing member 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
Sadly, that last wasn’t true. And the telegraph operators soon found their economic boom over and them selves obsolete as a new, voice over protocol was invented- the telephone. But the world was permanently changed by the technology that, for a lot of purposes, made distance immaterial.
Standage tells us not just about the invention of the technology of the telegraph system, but about the personalities of the people who created it, and the consequences that it had in business, government, romance (yes, love did bloom across the wires) and newspapers. He gives a complete picture but keeps it light. And interesting read about a part of history that changed the world as much as the printing press did before it and the internet after it. A quick read for non-fiction.
Show More
the Atlantic to one where it took mere minutes. It changed the speed of business and of war. New forms of crime sprang up to take advantage of the new technology and encryption was developed to deal with this. A new class of people sprang up- the telegraph operators, the only people who knew the knack of sending and receiving messages. They could go anywhere and be assured of a job. Suddenly, anyone who could afford the price of the telegram could talk to people across the globe. The telegraph system was hyped by some as the technology that would bring world peace- after all, if you could talk to someone instantly, you wouldn’t want to make war on them, would you? Sadly, that last wasn’t true. And the telegraph operators soon found their economic boom over and them selves obsolete as a new, voice over protocol was invented- the telephone. But the world was permanently changed by the technology that, for a lot of purposes, made distance immaterial.
Standage tells us not just about the invention of the technology of the telegraph system, but about the personalities of the people who created it, and the consequences that it had in business, government, romance (yes, love did bloom across the wires) and newspapers. He gives a complete picture but keeps it light. And interesting read about a part of history that changed the world as much as the printing press did before it and the internet after it. A quick read for non-fiction.
Show Less
LibraryThing member bke
I was surprised at how fascinating I found this book, the story of the first global communications network. Today's internet closely parallels the growth of the telegraph, at least as it was in Europe, where tariffs were kept low, so it was used much more by the general public than. In the US,
Quick read
Show More
higher rates kept it more for business use. The public understanding was sometimes amusing. Some thought the wires were hollow and messages were sucked through them. "It's just tubes!" Sound familiar? Attempts at regulation and the forbidding of code usage all eventually failed. Quick read
Show Less
LibraryThing member jddunn
A nice little nugget of popular history, that covers an underappreciated epoch in the making of the modern world. The telegraph was probably on of the first technologies to fulfill Arthur C. Clarke’s dictum of being indistinguishable from magic, and the effect it had on the society that developed
Show More
it, compared adroitly to the similar effect of the internet in our era, makes for a fascinating read. Show Less
LibraryThing member adzebill
A fun little book. He draws some cute parallels between the Internet and 19th Century telegraph-geek culture; I'd have loved to hear more about the latter. In fact, a novel about the telegraph geeks would be a hoot.
LibraryThing member arianr
One of my favorite books. Draws some very interesting parallels between the development of the Internet in the late20th and early 21st centuries and the development of the telegraph in the mid-19th century.
LibraryThing member nwagle
In the middle of the 19th century, the Victorians didn't have the telephone, the TV, the radio or the iPod. But they did have an internet. The Victorian Internet is the fascinating story of the development, growth, and decline of the telegraph, and how it parallels the development of the internet
Show More
in the 20th and 21st centuries in many ways. If you think socializing online is new, think again. Those bewhiskered and corseted Victorians were already at it in the 1860s! Show Less
LibraryThing member jgaiser
I finished this little book in three days. An intriguing look at the history of the telegraph, from it's beginnings in Europe until it's ultimate demise at the arrival of the teletype. The author also draws comparisons with the telegraph and the internet, with it's changes in how people
Show More
communicate, it's sub-cultures and it's hackers and crackers. Nothing new in the world. Show Less
LibraryThing member hailelib
A journalist in the area of science and technology, Sandage made his history of the telegraph easy to read and interesting. While I already knew many of the pieces I'd never read anything that put it all together and showed just how wide-spread the changes caused by the development of telegraph
Show More
networks were. The many anecdotes about the people and events he chronicled were great. He also makes a case for the shift in world view and communications being even greater with the advent of the telegraph than with the advent of computers. It should never have languished in the 'to be reads' for so long! Show Less
LibraryThing member Stevil2001
I was loaned this after one of my frequent declarations of interest in technology and science and their impact on society, especially in the Victorian era. As one can tell from the title, this book covers exactly that, discussing the birth and death of the telegraph. The first half of the book is a
The second half of the book discusses the way that contemporary society actually used the telegraph-- as the title implies, there are a lot of comparisons to the Internet, and most of them are apt. (The occasional anachronistic use of "on-line" was rather jarring, though.) The section on love on the wires was particularly good-- Internet dating apparently has a long and venerable heritage! It's also interesting to see how a lot of the rhetoric around the Internet-- such as the creation of a global village-- surrounded the telegraph, too, and was proved false then! The telegraph didn't bring nations together, creating peace; it simply allowed messages to get to the battlefront quicker!
All in all, a nice little book, with a good overview of a fascinating topic.
Show More
history of the telegraph, from its origins as an optical French device, to the invention of the electric version, and the laying of the transatlantic cable. It's all information I knew little about, and like all the best scientific developments, it makes for good reading.The second half of the book discusses the way that contemporary society actually used the telegraph-- as the title implies, there are a lot of comparisons to the Internet, and most of them are apt. (The occasional anachronistic use of "on-line" was rather jarring, though.) The section on love on the wires was particularly good-- Internet dating apparently has a long and venerable heritage! It's also interesting to see how a lot of the rhetoric around the Internet-- such as the creation of a global village-- surrounded the telegraph, too, and was proved false then! The telegraph didn't bring nations together, creating peace; it simply allowed messages to get to the battlefront quicker!
All in all, a nice little book, with a good overview of a fascinating topic.
Show Less
LibraryThing member 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 is
Show More
a rebuke to our own culture for assuming itself so uniquely innovative and changing. Show Less
LibraryThing member ladyoflorien
I listened to this book in audio format and loved hearing about the invention of the telegraph, the Victorian Internet, and its impact on society.
LibraryThing member lisahistory
A wonderfully written popular history of the telegraph. The approach is "in light of the internet" rather than hitting you over the head with comparisons to the internet. Very well done.
LibraryThing member Dreesie
So, this is a fairly dull and easy to read history of the telegraph. The earlier chapters are certainly the most interesting, but it very much glosses over electric theory of the time, and how inventors found out more about electricity.
This was heading to a solid 3 stars. And then I got to the last
This was heading to a solid 3 stars. And then I got to the last
Show More
chapter--The Legacy of the Telegraph. He tries to force the "Victorian Internet" a little too hard. Sure codes were used on the telegraph and on the internet. But weren't they used by homing pigeon as well? The telegraph was not the beginning of industrialization or long-distance or wartime communication, and that gets shoved to back burner by the time the last chapter rolls around. He was doing just fine up to that point. Show Less
LibraryThing member jordanjones
This is an entertaining history of the telegraph, and comparison of its social impact to that of the rise of the Internet.
LibraryThing member 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 being a
this invention by Frenchman Claude Chappe definitely forever changed world communication.
The history would be enhanced by a video showing exactly how his systems of wood panels and clocks really worked.
Though often slow moving, writing picks up when transatlantic cables are attempted.
That the telegraph did not develop into the promise of being a
Show More
major instrument for World Peace,this invention by Frenchman Claude Chappe definitely forever changed world communication.
The history would be enhanced by a video showing exactly how his systems of wood panels and clocks really worked.
Show Less
LibraryThing member kevn57
I expected the title to be hype but was pleasantly surprised by this book. The first online dating, marriage all took place over the telegraph. First online crime took place over the telegraph. When it was first built it was expected to usher in a lasting world peace as governments could instantly
Show More
communicate with each other. This book is well worth the time to read. Show Less
LibraryThing member stevetempo
Very enlightening! It’s amazing the parallels that exist between the early days of telegraphy and our own internet and cell phones. This very readable book takes you through the early development of the idea of telegraphy. It was a radical in it’s time. In fact I suspect even more radical then
Show More
our own cell phones of today. I would loved to have seen some discussion or wireless telegraphy being my only suggestion. Recommended!! Show Less
LibraryThing member E_Morgan_Huhn
I've certainly read worse books. This provides a nice, general, history of the telegraph. Standage does a fine job of providing a brief context but the real strength is looking at the boarder impact of the technology (and the offshoots from those early successes). This book successeds in conveying
Overall, a fine and easy read to provide a refresher on the topic.
Show More
the idea of invention as a team or compounding practice, and Standage provides those steps along the way. It would, however, have been nice to see a more clear context and credit provided for the development of the telegraph - Alfred Vail's contributions were glossed over, in turn presenting him as simply an assistant or part-time helper. Further context would always have been welcomed, but given the scope and audience of the book the lack thereof is acceptable.Overall, a fine and easy read to provide a refresher on the topic.
Show Less
LibraryThing member frederick0t6
Finished reading this on July 6, 2006.
I read this to get some background in the history of telegraph technology and it served well in that role. It is very much a popular history insofar as there is a heavy biographical focus on some of the inventors involved (Morse etc). Seeing as I read it as a
A small flaw which will become more glaring as time passes is Standage's effort, at times blatant, to draw parallels between the Internet and 19th century's telegraph network. At times, this works (e.g. the sub culture of telegraph operators and today's computer nerds) but it does not always work so well.
I read this to get some background in the history of telegraph technology and it served well in that role. It is very much a popular history insofar as there is a heavy biographical focus on some of the inventors involved (Morse etc). Seeing as I read it as a
Show More
background reading for a historical project, I found it lacking that regard. There are no footnotes for the any of the primary sources Standage uses, which is quite frustrating.A small flaw which will become more glaring as time passes is Standage's effort, at times blatant, to draw parallels between the Internet and 19th century's telegraph network. At times, this works (e.g. the sub culture of telegraph operators and today's computer nerds) but it does not always work so well.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Gwendydd
This is an interesting history of the telegraph. Standage not only examines how it was invented and spread, but the impact it had on how people communicated, the culture of the telegraph industry, and the ways it was used and abused. Throughout, Standage draws parallels between the telegraph and
The book was originally written in the late 1990s, so it has a very rosy view of the internet and its possibilities. An afterword was added in 2007 that addressed the dotcom bust, but still paints a positive picture of the internet. It would be interesting to see another afterword now.....
All in all, this is a very interesting and readable book.
Show More
the internet: both revolutionized communication, were optimistically but falsely hailed as facilitators of world peace, were used to facilitate business transactions, and were abused by scammers. The book was originally written in the late 1990s, so it has a very rosy view of the internet and its possibilities. An afterword was added in 2007 that addressed the dotcom bust, but still paints a positive picture of the internet. It would be interesting to see another afterword now.....
All in all, this is a very interesting and readable book.
Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1998
ISBN
0425171698 / 9780425171691