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

by Tom Standage

A new paperback edition of the first book by the bestselling author of A History of the World in 6 Glasses ―the fascinating story of the telegraph, the world's first "Internet," which revolutionized the nineteenth century even more than the Internet has the twentieth and twenty first. 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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Technology, Science, Historical, Audiobook, Victorian

256 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 1998

About the author

Tom Standage is a journalist and author from England. A graduate of Oxford University, he has worked as a science and technology writer for The Guardian, as the business editor at The Economist, has been published in Wired, The New York Times, and The Daily Telegraph, and has published five books, including The Victorian Internet[1][2]. This book explores the historical development of the telegraph and the social ramifications associated with this development. Tom Standage also proposes that if Victorians from the 1800s were to be around today, they would be far from impressed with present Internet capabilities. This is because the development of the telegraph essentially mirrored the development of the Internet. Both technologies can be seen to have largely impacted the speed and transmission of information and both were widely criticised by some, due to their perceived negative consequences.

Standage has taken part in various key media events. He recently participated in ictQATAR's "Media Connected" forum for journalists in Qatar, where he discussed the concept of technology journalism around the world and how technology is expected to keep transforming the world of journalism in the Middle East and all around the world.

-Wikipedia

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading a few books by Tom Standage, I was eager to get my hands on this piece. While many are familiar with the explosion of the Internet over the past few decades, Standage argues that there was a similar type of communication system that was just as complicated and readily accessible to the masses. The idea of a telegraph system came about centuries ago, when a Frenchman sought to relay messages between two points using the clanging of pots in a specific coded manner. While this seemed to work, it fell apart when the wind was too strong and the privacy of the message was completely lost. As advancements grew, telegraphy became a hot topic among physicists and investors of all kinds. Samuel Morse is seen as the father of modern telegraphy, using wires to transmit messages through a coded system he created. The emergence of Morse Code and the continued experimentation of communication through the wire began a primitive system whereby communities could pass along short messages up or down the line. However, vastly separated areas were still not able to communicate with one another, which posed an issue in making it a truly global attraction. Into the middle of Victorian Era, the idea of sending messages across the British Empire became all the rage, or at least across the Atlantic Ocean. Laying wires across open bodies of water by ship soon remedied this, though there were still errors during the early stages of its organisation. With determination, messages began to make their way through, though the ease with which messages could be sent soon created a massive backlog.

Standage addresses some of the larger follies of the telegraph system in the second part of the book. By using Morse Code, operators would sometimes bungle a single word and thereby completely change the message being sent or delivered. This proved to be quite costly in one instance, as a man lost thousands in stock purchases because he misunderstood the message sent by a colleague. There were also the issues of coding or shorthand message sending, where fabricated words made it even more difficult to convey the needed message from one person to the other. Eventually, rules were put in place to standardise, or at least limit the superfluous verbiage being placed across the lines. A more humourous downfall included the lack of complete understanding that people had about telegraphs. Standage discusses two examples whereby people came to the telegraph office to send physical items, from a plate of sauerkraut to a handful of money. The concept of immediate communication between people still needed to be honed, but things were surely moving in the right direction.

Standage does speak of some of the downfalls that came with telegraph use, specifically the inundating of offices with information. These countless messages would create major delivery delays and tie up the wires for weeks, thereby making the new technology less effective. Others argued that telegraph transmission provided the consumer with too much readily accessible information, lessening the ‘business edge’ when it came to the capitalist relationship. The rise of Western Union can be directly tied to the advancements in telegraphy, creating a monopoly for a period. However, as new technology emerged, in the form of the telephone, Western Union’s telegraph system began to wane, leaving it to fill the void with money transfers, but that is best discussed in another biography.

After reading to stellar books about world history seen through the eyes of various objects, I was pleased to see telegraphy receive such a thorough examination. Standage does a masterful job at laying the historical groundwork and developing great arguments throughout. He uses an array of concrete examples to substantiate his hypotheses in each chapter and provides the reader with a great story about the development of the telegraph machine. His parallels in the latter portion of the book as it relates to the modern internet is quite useful, as though there was a quasi-resurrection of ideas and sentiments about this new form of communication. The writing is not overly academic, though there is definitely a detailed primer feel to the writing, requiring more than a passing interest in the topic. I found myself affixed to the narrative and wanted to know more, hanging on while Standage discussed many of the topics at hand, which mixed a serious and somewhat humorous side to the topic. While the telegraph was eventually replaced with the telephone, there is sure to be a new form of technology that awaits the general public. What that is has yet to be discovered, but I hope Tom Standage is still around to explore it and pens a catchy tome to discuss its emergence.

Kudos, Mr. Standage, for another amazing reading experience. I have thoroughly enjoyed what I have read of yours to date and will scour the library for more!

Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/

A Book for All Seasons, a different sort of Book Challenge: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

[K.J. Charles]

A very readable account of the rise, spread, and fall of the telegraph. Extremely informative, and as the title suggests, full of resonances with the internet.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

easy engaging read STOP concise like a telegram STOP naive to think it would bring peace STOP first exploited by criminals military STOP globalized trade very much like WWW STOP many funny anecdotes STOP sending sauerkraut STOP SFD 73 FULL STOP

[Philip · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading a number of the reviews I am prone to think that a number of people missed the larger point. For all of the hyping of the internet in the mid to late 90's, it wasn't as drastic a change to everyday lives as was the electric telegraph. Where it took weeks to months for a message to cross oceans or continents before the telegraph, it took minutes after. The phone and internet just changed the amount that could be communicated. The telegraph truly interconnected the world and laid the groundwork for the phone network and internet later.

Also to try to compare the telegraph operators to your standard internet user is unfair. the more proper analogy would be to the web designer/software programmer. It was a more technical job than the GUI interface of our browsers of today which make it so easy for your basic user of the internet.

I agree that it is mostly an overview that doesn't go greatly in-depth, but it does hit pretty much all the points. To say that it doesn't go very far into the Chappe's telegraph towers is also unfair; the book does go into it and discusses how it sped up communications, and then it does go into the disadvantages as well (doesn't work at night, doesn't work in fog or heavy rain, and seen by whoever has a line of sight view (so not very private)).

[R. C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Steam-powered e-love affairs! Hapless Scottish fisherman trying to serve gutta perch telegraph wire tubs for supper! Telegraph operators flooding the wires of the noobs just like kids flood chat rooms! Plus lots of little-known facts. I had no idea the first telegraphs were optical, or how hard it really was to put a line across oceans, or that codes were illegal... This book was funny and enlightening and just about the best thing you could read if you're a steampunk fan looking for some actual history.

It's also a good read for anyone who thinks much about how the world's all changed because of the internet. I can't think of another book that so well displays the actual moment when the whole world connected. The author makes a clear contrast between the pre-telegraph world and the newly connected one, making an argument that the generation of the Millenials should be counted back to 1854.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Standage provides curious and accurate parallels between the rise of the internet, and the rise of the telegraph, the former of which can definitely trace its ancestry directly to the latter. Though given how quickly it proliferated and increased in capability and complexity, and given that instant communication had never been developed in the history of humanity, the telegraph appears to be a far more impressive in its era than the internet was to a world already widely accustomed to electricity, radio, telephones, television, and for that matter, computers.

People were optimistic “The laying of the telegraph cable is regarded...as the greatest event in the present century; the whole earth will be belted with electric current, palpitating with human thoughts and emotions. It shows that nothing is impossible to man” Some even believed this would include world peace. Standage notes the irony that the same things were said about the internet.

Standage writes about the history of the technology itself, from mechanical telegraphs with giant arms, to the eventual obsolescence of the electric telegraph through the rise of the telephone, though I was most fascinated in this book with the cultures that developed around it. While the technology impacted the whole world, the people most involved were the actual operators who during quiet hours would begin messaging each other. “Stories, jokes, and local gossip circulated over the wires...just as if the participants were sitting together at a club. In some cases the tales passing over the wires would find their way into the local newspaper. Most did not because...they were far too smutty or anatomically explicit.”

A telegraph session is described that was joined by thirty three different offices in which everyone could send a message to anyone else at the same time, yet “after passing various resolutions, the employees adjourned the meeting in great harmony and kindly feeling after about an hour” I have no idea how they kept it organized. There are still chat rooms that are pure chaos.

There were many women telegraph operators as well as men and the most curious incidents described were those of operators that met through telegraph messages and fell in love. “Minnie Swan Mitchell, a young operator in the 1880s, recalled that 'many a telegraph romance begun over the wire culminated in marriage”

Nonetheless I think there were some missed opportunities. There were more parallels with the internet which I think could've been explored. The International Telegraphic Union is barely mentioned though it was literally the equivalent to ICANN. The ITU was stationed in Geneva, whereas ICANN is headquartered in Los Angeles as if to demonstrate the shift across the Atlantic in both geopolitics and the center of technological innovation. Instead of a domain name, the ITU assigned every station a code.

Experiments in the transmission of images are also omitted. From the pantelegraph, to the telantograph, to the telectograph, to the telestereograph, it’s a fascinating story and completely ignored here.

There was also somehow a chapter on information overload focusing on business transactions of all things without even mentioning the famous passage from Walden on the rise of irrelevant information in the news due to the telegraph.

It's light and curious reading. You can finish it in a few days and gain a new perspective on one of history's most important technologies.

[Matthew Hines · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished this wonderful little volume which chronicles the rise and fall of "The Victorian Intenet," the telegraph. Like many others, I knew about Samuel Morse and the Morse Code, of the laying of the Atlantic cable and how the telegraph laid the groundwork for modern communications unlike anything else in history.

But what I didn't know is how very much alike it was to our Internet. They had "chat rooms" of sorts, they had their hackers and identity theives. Mr. Standage also tells a few fascinating stories of how some people found love on the wires. One story stands out about a young army telegrapher in remote New Mexico who married his fiance at the fort, while the minister and the bride's father were 650 miles away in San Diego. He tells of how bored telegraph operators played chess, exchanged jokes and recipes, and got to know people outside their hometown that without the device would not have been possible.

The telegraph had much more of an impact on that generation than most other technologies have on this one. Before Morse and the other pioneers of telegraphy, news was limited to an area that might be no more than a few days ride away. News of foreign wars, trade regulations, and even news from the far corners of our far flung republic could be weeks old by the time it reached decision makers. One wonders if the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812 would have been fought, as a peace treaty was signed weeks before this famous battle was waged.

Between 1844, when Morse sent his famous phrase over the wires, to Alexander Bell's utterances on his new telephone, the world changed drastically because of the twin catalysts of telegraphy and the railroad. Messages could now be sent from London, and it would reach it's destination in Bombay four minutes later. A New York merchant could receive an order to export flour to London, and in turn issue orders to his warehouse in San Francisco to send it eastward to help fulfill the order. During the American Civil War, President Lincoln knew the events unfolding in far away battles almost as soon as they occurred- something that had never happened in previous conflicts. And just like we had a dot com boom, where the opportunities were online, so they had a telegraph boom, where a man could make something of himself in this new fangled world.

I have read widely in history, and every once in a while a book crosses my path which excites my intellect. This book entertains, informs, and demonstrates once again that indeed "there is nothing new under the sun." It just is updated.

[Victor Sonkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of how the telegraph service changed the world (and boy did it change the world).

[Read by Fred · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written, engaging history of the telegraph: how it revolutionized communication; helped globalize trade; and, changed the way we as a society thought of information in the 1800s.

[Stacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not the type of person that is drawn to treatises on machines, but when I came across this book, my curiosity won out and I was shocked to find I couldn't put it down. Rather than focusing on the mechanics of the telegraph too strongly, Tom Standage instead focuses on the people that created the telegraph and its effects on society. For instance, he notes that prior to the telegraph, news took 10 weeks to get from Britain to certain outposts in India, but once the telegraph was installed there, it took just 4 minutes! Merchants were also affected because deals with suppliers across the states in the U.S. used to involve weeks of letters and negotiations back and forth. However, with the telegraph, negotiations could be done in one day causing everything to speed up and, Standage argues, resulting in the more fast paced business that we are so familiar with today. Standage also points out that operators of the telegraph could communicate much like in internet chat rooms today, so the internet today, while an advance, was not the huge life shattering change that the telegraph was.

From describing the various scientists and laymen responsible for the telegraph, including the original optical telegraph used in France before electricity was harnessed for it, Standage traces the gradual evolution of the telegraph which then finally led into the telephone that destroyed the telegraph business. Though it may sound naive to some, I had no idea that they actually laid out over 2000 miles of telegraph cable at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean (some 2 miles deep) in order to connect Europe to Newfoundland and Newfoundland then to the U.S. I didn't know such things could be done - especially in the 1860's! Tom Standage writes a riveting account of a forgotten time and the legacy of the telegraph which can still be in seen in the internet and phones today.

[Scottsdale Public Library]

I had no idea what I was getting into when I picked up this book, but it turned out to be a facinating look back at the telegraph, its operators, and how they changed the world. Standage's writing style is like a novel and he keeps the pace moving. I recommend all his books. -- Kelly H.--

[hedgehog · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5* rounding up. My library only had this as an audiobook, so while I didn't intend the medium as another layer of meta, I thought it was sort of funny and fitting to read it that way. The audiobook is read by the author, and he has an excellent reading voice, English-accented(? I assume), soothing but not soporific. This is a very readable introduction to the history of the telegraph—both the optical and electrical are covered here—and peppered with interesting trivia. Truly, whatever we think is revolutionary about the internet, the Victorians already had it on lock. There are anecdotes about weddings being conducted over the telegraph! Most of the book is given to the technical barriers of the inventions, the hurdle of laying all that transatlantic cable, etc., and I would have liked to hear more about the social mobility & economic freedom that careers in telegraphy gave especially to single women at the time, but overall I was kept interested throughout, and this was a good primer to whet my appetite for further reading. I think the only thing that made me kind of double-take was the ending where Standage would have it that the telegraph was obsolete by the end of the Victorian era, except that I remember pretty clearly that, e.g., Rose Wilder Lane (Laura Ingalls Wilder's daughter) was making a living as a telegrapher as late as 1906 and possibly beyond, so clearly there was still a market for it at that point that the telephone had not managed to totally quash. I could have misunderstood that passage, though, I was trying not to get run over by traffic at that point in the audiobook, so...

Couple this read with Wired Love, a contemporary 1879 novel about a romance between two telegraphers. I must've read it pre-Goodreads since I don't have it on record here but it reinforces Standage's thesis of "the more things change..." re: the comparison between telegraphy and internet. (Includes the incredibly modern problem of starting a relationship over the "wires" and then having to deal with the differences of actually having to live with/meet that person in brickspace!)

[Greg Pettit · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another shallow, quick, interesting read. I enjoyed this light history of the telegraph, and there certainly were interesting parallels with the Internet. However, there also seemed to be several gaps in the narrative.

For the most part, I liked how Standage simplified his description of the development and evolution of telegraphy. The early pre-electric history and problem-solving stories were particularly interesting. But with all the detail put into explaining some solutions, it was frustrating when he didn't do the same with others. For example, there were only a couple of sentences briefly mentioning how the problem of sending over great distances was resolved.

Overall, I'd still recommend it for anyone interested in communication in this time period. Like the other Standage book I've read, A History of the World in 6 Glasses, it is a great starting place likely to whet your appetite for a more in-depth book.

[Song · Rating 3 out of 5]

电报的发明和发展史。比较易读。内容介绍了早期电报的发明先驱，各种技术方案，摩尔斯电码的产生，和爱迪生等发明家和工业家在电报扩展到全球过程中的作用。同时还描述了由于电报出现，而导致人类历史上第一次信息传送时效性极大提升所带来的影响，包括商业，股票证券市场，商品期货和人们的普通日常生活。

电报确实是人类历史上的第一个“互联网”（字面意义上的互联）。十九世纪六十年代左右，全球电报网就已经跨越了全球的主要大洲和大洋，把各个主要国家连接在一起。中国的第一个电报局出现在1871年。信息的快速传递，无疑是古代世界退场的最后一声叹息。世界在人类面前不再神秘，经过电报和报纸，人们可以迅速知道地球另一端的新闻。这一幕，无疑是现代人习以为常的普通景象，开端就在于全球电报网的出现。

人类之所以可贵，就是因为有区别于野兽的崇高理想。电报网出现时，当时的人们普遍非常乐观，认为这个新事物会随之提高全球的交流和认识，促进人类的共同和平和进步。作为后人，我们当然知道这种看法错了，甚至有点可笑。电报宣告了现代世界的诞生，却没能预见现代魔鬼的释放——人们也可以用更高效的手段互相厮杀，而不是互相了解。这当然不是电报的错，也不是发明家的错，只是没人能够预见科技到底能够被用来达成何种目的。

当代的时尚是人类在网络上展开生活，年轻一代也以熟练使用各种网络词汇为时髦。然而读过这本书就知道，早在一百五十多年前，祖先的祖先就在电报网络中网恋，炒股，买卖期货商品，讲段子，那才是开创全新时代的时髦，当代的我们只是重复而已。也许，我们甚至还不如清朝的老祖宗们，毕竟他们的“互联网”没有防火墙阻拦，而是真正与全球的网络互联互通，真正成为全球网络的一分子。

也许这就是某种意义上的“一代不如一代”。

[Thom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick read from the master of lists, Tom Standage. Plenty of history from the world wide web (of wires) including anecdotes about online crime, banking and commerce, cryptography, message routing and online romance. The only thing lacking was spam - and man am I jealous about that.

Author argues that the telegraph did more to shrink the world than the internet has, and I am inclined to agree. That technology was developed to the point of being replaced by the telephone - will something similar happen to our beloved internet someday?

[J. Boo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very short placeholder review: interesting material. Light on technical details. Author is British and this shows in some of what is covered, and some of what isn't, and some American details the author probably would've mentioned if he was aware of them (e.g. Alexander Grahame Bell's shenanigans).

[David Asche · Rating 5 out of 5]

Technically changes but human nature rarely does.

[b.andherbooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I needed a "non-fiction book about technology" for my Book Riot Read Harder Challenge and was hard pressed to find something modern I cared to learn about in this dumpster fire we call 2017, so I instead turned to the Victorians and the advent of the telegraph.

Super illuminating and refreshing to see that new technology causes greatness and horribleness no matter the era. I was not aware the first telegraphs were visual, using long arms to gesture codes atop large hills (creepy) nor realized how horrid it must have been to try and lay cable across the Atlantic. on a boat. Yikes.

A highly readable micro-history!

[Michael Dubakov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Первая половина очень интересная, вторая не особенно.
--
Читаю (вернее, слушаю) про изобретение телеграфа. Так вот сначала его изобрели французы и был он оптический. Закодировали буквы с помощью трех поворачивающихся палок, построили кучу башень и наслаждались быстрой передачей сообщений в хорошую погоду.

В электрический телеграф никто не верил. Все попытки передать электричество на длинные расстояния успешно проваливались. Но даже когда всё это преодолели и построили пару тестовых линий, их никто не воспринимал всерьез. По телеграфу играли в шахматы и показывали как забавную фигню правительственным чиновникам. Оооочень медленно появлялось понимание, зачем нужна передача информации быстрее материи и как это всё использовать.

Электрический телеграф был непонятным. Какие-то точки и тире, хрен знает как это работает. Даже в момент расцвета электрического телеграфа многие считали, что провода полые и бумажки передаются прямо через них.

Так что вот эта непонятность очень мешала скорейшему распространению инновационной технологии.

Несколько наблюдений общего характера.

1. Распространение электрического телеграфа было классическим экспоненциальным процессом. Сначала очень медленно (десятилетия без особого прогресса), а потом очень быстро.

2. Без настойчивости отдельных больных на всю голову людей (Морзе) ничего бы не вышло. Они были невероятно увлечены и крайне настойчивы.

3. Морзе не знал о многих провалившихся попытках создать телеграф (потому что был художником, между прочим). Так что подошел к этому делу без предубеждений и с полной уверенностью осуществимости.

4. Непонятность серьезно замедляет внедрение даже очень крутой технологии.

5. Паттерны использования новой технологии почти всегда непредсказуемые и открываются по мере изучения этой технологии.

[Simon Eskildsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating journey through the second half of the 1800s with the invention of the telegraph. As we went from messaging taking 10 days (at the fastest) to get across the Atlantic to, in 1866 with the transatlantic submarine cable, minutes.

Of course, at the time, as we did with the Internet in the 90s, this amount of global connectivity would surely bring world peace with it! It'd wash out the cultural differences in no time! People found love over the wire and it's described as a true hey-day for telegraph operators as they traveled around the world, operating telegraphs (the telegraphic nomad). It completely changed the news media, instead of accounts being delayed by months and weeks, they could now be relayed in real time. Something the news saw as a wonderful new opportunity to appeal to people's emotion and give them dramatic stories in real-time.

Such a humbling account of something that took place 150 years ago, but seems so oddly familiar today. The leap from the telegraph (and later, telephone/teleprinter) to the Internet isn't as far as the leap from mail horse wagons to telegrams.

Comes highly recommended as a Christmas read.

[Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great snapshot of the inventors and engineers in America and England who brought the world's first long distance network to life. Critics and pundits of the time thought it would bring peace and harmony to the world. Instead there were stock market and horse racing scams, secret lovers & adulterers sending long distance coded notes and politicians trying to rig elections. Our internet is not so revolutionary after all. The author does a great job of detailing all the various attempts at cryptography that the power of the telegraph pushed people to innovate. What got to me was the stories of the telegraph workers who found themselves replaced by automation (the teletype is just one example) at an ever quickening pace. The introduction of the telephone made them all obsolete. It made me realize many of the Victorian era lived much more modern lives than I had presumed.
Decimal Star Rating: 4.4 of 5

[Lia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look into the very first internet, how it came about, and its impact on the world. Some of the language quoted from the time was difficult to understand, and there were parts where I felt like the author didn’t try to explain the context as well as he could have. The storytelling is quite good, though, and I give it a four for subject matter.

[Sourav · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was highly entertaining to read the history of telegraph. It seems as if I'm going through history of internet - people were getting connected, commerce was becoming faster, wires were put up across oceans and much more.

[Jacqueline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! I highly, highly recommend it. The Victorian Internet is an excellent history of the telegraph. But it is not simply a fact-and-name filled book of inventions and advances. It's a social history - focusing on the social impact and societal change that the telegraph brought to the world. And, cleverly he compares the changes the telegraph brought to the Victorian world (especially in England) to changes the Internet has brought about today. This makes a study of the history of science seem so much more relevant. It's also a quick and fun read.

The telegraph gave rise to creative business practices and new forms of crime. Romances blossomed over the wires. Secret codes were devised by some users, and cracked by others. The benefits of the network were relentlessly hyped by its advocates and dismissed by the skeptics.

(Flyleaf description)

People chatted, dated, and fell in love "on-line", but through the telegraph. Police work was changed by the telegraph. In major cities such as London, there were even problems with overloads of traffic and delays (a problem solved with pneumatic tubes being used to deliver telegraph messages to "the last mile"). It's a fascinating history, and again, a quick and breezy read too.

I did read this book a few years ago, so I don't remember every detail. But I do, still, remember some of the major points of the book. And I highly recommend it.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know you want to read all about how the telegraph ushered in the information age, "wired love" and all! It's fun to follow the trail of inventive genius and the resulting cultural shockwaves. The things humans can do! Loved that every time I had difficulty picturing the mechanisms of one contraption or another, I turned the page only to find a helpful historical diagram!

The comparisons with our modern internet are still apt 10 years on. Maybe more so, from our vantage point of web 2.0 or whatever they're calling it these days. (Though, for my money? The best legacy of the golden age of the telegraph might just be the pile of bad poetry.)

Once you've read this I recommend checking out this book review for a critique and more cool thoughts about elitism, the transformative power of technology, and narratives of progress.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a story of the telegraph well told. Standage takes the reader on a tour of the history of the telegraph. Technical details are kept sufficient to tell the story and are easy to understand for the general reader. Despite the title, Standage reserves his comparisons to the Internet (this book was published in 1998) to the final chapter, which I very much appreciated.

While the Internet is hailed as a revolutionary communication achievement, Standage makes a good point that it was the telegraph that was the true revolution. The ITU, which oversees Internet standards, was founded in 1865 to oversee telegraphy standards. Over twenty years later, the conclusions of this book still ring true today. Recommended!

[Iamreddave · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. a very quick read that shows everything from digital chatrooms to online dating were happening in the 1870s and how nerd culture developed from that point on.

What happened next is in 'The Phone Book: The Curious History of the Book That Everyone Uses But No One Reads' by Ammon Shea. Standage book on the history of the world in six glasses is great. His history of social media didn't grab me in the same way but is definitely worth reading.

[Chris Lund · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never in a million years would have guessed that the history of the telegraph was so darn interesting. Optical telegraph towers relaying messages from hilltop to hilltop? Pneumatic tubs shuttling paper from office to office? Virtual weddings? Crime fighting? Secret codes? Whales? Sauerkraut? This book has them all, and more. I know many book titles have a tendency to over-exaggerate, but "remarkable" really is a spot-on accurate word for this story.

[Cynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very accessible. I only wish that Standage HD been a little more technical, so I could be a little challenged.

[Henrik Lehtonen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting and enlightening look at the history, challenges and victories of the telegram.