The Victorian Internet - 2nd Edition by Tom Standage (Paperback)

About the Book

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.

Book Synopsis

A new paperback edition of the book the Wall Street Journal dubbed "a Dot-Com cult classic," by the bestselling author of A History of the World in 6 Glasses-the fascinating story of the telegraph, the world's first "Internet."

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.

Review Quotes

"I was simply fascinated by this book. It contains parallels between the reception of the telegraph and the Internet which I knew nothing about...An extraordinary book." --Vinton Cerf, co-inventor of the Internet

"Sparkling." --Forbes

"Fascinating...It you've ever hankered for a perspective on media Net hype, this book is for you." --Wired

"A delightful book." --Smithsonian

"A fascinating walk through a pivotal period in human history." --USA Today

About the Author