Review: The Victorian Internet

A weekend nonfiction book review.  Because Pastors need a break from heavy theological reading too.

Tom Standage.  The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century’s On-line Pioneers.  New York, NY: Bloomsbury USA, February 25th 2014. 256 pp.

4 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon

Earlier this year I read the author’s newer book on the history of social media.  Stumbling upon this book I thought this was worth reading too.  I found both books fascinating.  In this particular title the author looks at the invention, development and impact of the telegraph and we see how it parallels to the internet today.  What is amazing to me is the fact that this book was first written in 1998 and much of the materials is the same in the second edition.  In fact what was true in 1998 is even more so the case today.

The book explores the history of the exploration of electricity and the attempt to invent some kind of device that would help messages travel faster than human messengers could travel.  I was very intrigued with all the book’s information and also how the first invention of “telegraph” were invented.  Before this book I did not know that early telegraphs were more Optical telegraphs in that they communicated by signals that were seen visually by observers rather than it being wired and electrically connected “telegraphs.”  It certainly was illuminating to learn the history of why there are places called “Telegraph Hill” in some cities.  Of course the most intriguing part of the book was the invention of what we now think of when we hear the word “telegraph:”  Electric signals sent over wires from one location to another.  The book describes the difficulties and trials of the invention of the telegraph and also the difficulties of the inventors to communicate to the people how important it is rather than society seeing it as a nice piece of fascinating oddity.  Here it is fascinating to see the process of making the telegraph and making it commercially viable by amateurs, professional scientists, businessmen and the government.

I thought it was also interesting to see the book describe the attempt to make a transatlantic wired telegraph network.  It is crazy to think of how revolutionary that idea must have been to communicate from one continent to another or even from place to another over miles of oceans.  What a thought that is to think of much wires are needed to lay down wires across the Atlantic!  The book also describe the difficulties of the right kind of materials used to make the wires that is going to go underwater and sizes, etc.  Fascinating to me as well is the description in the book of how telegraph operators communicated to each other through this “Victorian internet” of the time with stories of its use and how people communicated with one another.  I think the author’s point that we see the same hopes and promises for the internet today were also echoed earlier with the telegraph should slow us down and consider the hubris of our time.  It reminded me of the book of Ecclesiastes that there is certainly nothing new under the sun even though the technological development is different, human condition and nature is the same: people will still use technology to commit crime, cheat others and make money dishonestly.