Crossed Wires

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 *