The Master Switch

The Rise and Fall of Information Empires

by

Hardcover, 384 pages

English language

Published Jan. 4, 2010 by Alfred A. Knopf.

ISBN:
978-0-307-26993-5
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OCLC Number:
515402494

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In this age of an open Internet, it is easy to forget that every American information industry, beginning with the telephone, has eventually been taken captive by some ruthless monopoly or cartel. With all our media now traveling a single network, an unprecedented potential is building for centralized control over what Americans see and hear. Could history repeat itself with the next industrial consolidation? Could the Internet—the entire flow of American information—come to be ruled by one corporate leviathan in possession of “the master switch”? That is the big question of Tim Wu’s pathbreaking book.

As Wu’s sweeping history shows, each of the new media of the twentieth century—radio, telephone, television, and film—was born free and open. Each invited unrestricted use and enterprising experiment until some would-be mogul battled his way to total domination. Here are stories of an uncommon will to power, the power over information: Adolph Zukor, who …

4 editions

Subjects

  • Telecommunication -- History
  • Information technology -- History