The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires (Borzoi Books): Amazon.de: Tim Wu: Englische Bücher

Weitere Ausgaben

Amazon-Preis

Neu ab

Gebraucht ab

Kindle Edition

EUR 5,46

Gebundene Ausgabe, Rauer Buchschnitt

EUR 16,95

Taschenbuch

EUR 10,90

MP3 CD, Audiobook

EUR 13,99

Kurzbeschreibung

Erscheinungstermin: 2. November 2010 | Reihe: Borzoi Books

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 took a technology once used as commonly as YouTube is today and made it the exclusive prerogative of a kingdom called Hollywood . . . NBC’s founder, David Sarnoff, who, to save his broadcast empire from disruptive visionaries, bullied one inventor (of electronic television) into alcoholic despair and another (this one of FM radio, and his boyhood friend) into suicide . . . And foremost, Theodore Vail, founder of the Bell System, the greatest information empire of all time, and a capitalist whose faith in Soviet-style central planning set the course of every information industry thereafter.

Explaining how invention begets industry and industry begets empire—a progress often blessed by government, typically with stifling consequences for free expression and technical innovation alike—Wu identifies a time-honored pattern in the maneuvers of today’s great information powers: Apple, Google, and an eerily resurgent AT&T. A battle royal looms for the Internet’s future, and with almost every aspect of our lives now dependent on that network, this is one war we dare not tune out.

Part industrial exposé, part meditation on what freedom requires in the information age, The Master Switch is a stirring illumination of a drama that has played out over decades in the shadows of our national life and now culminates with terrifying implications for our future.

#outer_postBodyPS { display: none; } #psGradient { display: none; } #psPlaceHolder { display: none; } #psExpand { display: none; } 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 took a technology once used as commonly as YouTube is today and made it the exclusive prerogative of a kingdom called Hollywood . . . NBC’s founder, David Sarnoff, who, to save his broadcast empire from disruptive visionaries, bullied one inventor (of electronic television) into alcoholic despair and another (this one of FM radio, and his boyhood friend) into suicide . . . And foremost, Theodore Vail, founder of the Bell System, the greatest information empire of all time, and a capitalist whose faith in Soviet-style central planning set the course of every information industry thereafter.

Explaining how invention begets industry and industry begets empire—a progress often blessed by government, typically with stifling consequences for free expression and technical innovation alike—Wu identifies a time-honored pattern in the maneuvers of today’s great information powers: Apple, Google, and an eerily resurgent AT&T. A battle royal looms for the Internet’s future, and with almost every aspect of our lives now dependent on that network, this is one war we dare not tune out.

Part industrial exposé, part meditation on what freedom requires in the information age, The Master Switch is a stirring illumination of a drama that has played out over decades in the shadows of our national life and now culminates with terrifying implications for our future.

Wird oft zusammen gekauft

Produktinformation

Gebundene Ausgabe: 384 Seiten
Verlag: Knopf (2. November 2010)
Sprache: Englisch
ISBN-10: 0307269930
ISBN-13: 978-0307269935
Gr��e und/oder Gewicht: 16,9 x 3,4 x 24,3 cm
Amazon Bestseller-Rang: Nr. 80.308 in Englische Bücher (Siehe Top 100 in Englische Bücher)

M�chten Sie die Produktinformationen aktualisieren oder Feedback zu den Produktabbildungen geben?
Ist der Verkauf dieses Produkts f�r Sie nicht akzeptabel?

Produktbeschreibungen

Pressestimmen

Praise for Tim Wu’s THE MASTER SWITCH

“An explosive history that makes it clear how the information business became what it is today. Important reading.”
            —Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More and Free: How
            Today’s Smartest Businesses Profit by Giving Something for Nothing; editor of Wired Magazine

“Wu’s book is both a masterful media history and an outline for the future of the digital age. The Master Switch brilliantly describes the never-ending tension between open and closed media, as it has effected everything from the printing press to the web, and details ways society might be able to prevent the disastrous closing down of digital freedoms currently threatening the open internet.”
            —Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organization and Cognitive
            Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age

“Every now and then a book changes the way we understand the world. The Master Switch is such an achievement; it is a rigorous, imaginative and enthralling history of the Twentieth Century struggle among utopian innovators, profit-maximizing monopolists, and their often-hapless regulators. Wu has convincingly reinterpreted our media past, and by doing so, he has illuminated the risks to open media and Internet-enabled innovation that confront us in the present.”
            —Steve Coll, President, New American Foundation and Pulitzer Prize winning author of Ghost Wars: The Secret
            History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001

“A masterpiece.”
            —Lawrence Lessig, Director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics and Professor of Law, Harvard
            University

“Ranging from the early days of Theodore Vail’s AT&T to the current battle between Google and Apple, Tim Wu’s work is a must read for those who want to know about the future of the Internet. The Master Switch is brilliant, with a distinctive voice that comes through on every page.”
            —Josh Silverman, CEO, Skype

“A free and open Internet is not a given. Indeed, corporate interests are working feverishly to seize control of it. Drawing on history, The Master Switch shows how this could easily happen and why we are at risk of losing the freedom we now take for granted. A must-read for all Americans who want to remain the ones deciding what they can read, watch, and listen to.”
            —Arianna Huffington

“The Master Switch [is] my pick for economics book of the year.”
            —Ezra Klein, The Washington Post

“[A]n intellectually ambitious history of modern communications.... Wu makes a good case [and] his most thought-provoking argument about the future may actually be the past.”
            —David Leonhardt, New York Times Book Review

“[T]here’s sharp insight and a surprising fact on nearly every page of Wu’s masterful survey.... entertaining.”
           —Hiawatha Bray, Boston Globe

“[A] brilliant exploration of the oscillations of communications technologies between ‘open’ and ‘closed’ from the early days of telephone up through Hollywood and broadcast television up to the Internet era.”
            —Michael Noer, Forbes

“[O]riginal, insightful...Wu skillfully evocates the early years of telephony.... he provides a compelling reminder of the monopolist instincts of communications and media companies.”
           —Steven Pearlstein, Washington Monthly

“[M]asterful.... fascinating.... a superstar in the telecommunications world.... Wu has a way of presenting complex and important concepts in a clear and understandable way....eminently readable....a wealth of....fabulous anecdotes....a warning that we ignore at our peril.”
            —Art Brodsky, Huffington Post

“[G]roundbreaking.... The Master Switch offers powerful lessons from the past for the future of the Internet.”
            —Li Gong, Nature

“[T]imely.... a PW Best Book of 2010.... The Master Switch is a fascinating look at the cycle of technology and media development over the past century, and implications for the future.”
            —Andrew Richard Albanese, Publisher’s Weekly

“Wu…artfully charts a single story in which economic power consistently trumps public good, with the Google of today being the latest ‘master switch’ that channels communication….Eye-opening reading, with implications for just about anyone who uses that utility, which means just about everyone.”
            —Kirkus (starred review)

“Wu’s engaging narrative and remarkable historical detail make this a compelling and galvanizing cry for sanity...in the information age.”
            —Publisher’s Weekly (starred review and ‘pick of the week’)

“Eye-opening business history.... Wu is an exemplary writer...able to draw readers into his stories with engaging details.”
            —Library Journal

“[A]n essential look at the directions that personal computing could be headed depending on which policies and worldviews come to dominate control over the Internet.”
            —David Siegfried, Booklist (starred review)

“The Master Switch....a brilliant explanation and history....is as fascinating, wide-ranging, and, ultimately, inspiring book about communications policy and the information industries as you could hope to find.... Wu’s great strength is in the breadth of his scholarship an din his ability to use humor, clear language, and innovative arguments to connect diverse ideas.... Wu is that rare animal, an accomplished scholar who can write about complex ideas in ways that are accessible to all. And the ideas he’s covering are as important as any in our ideological marketplace today.”
            —Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing

Über den Autor

Tim Wu is an author, a policy advocate, and a professor at Columbia University. In 2006, he was recognized as one of fifty leaders in science and technology by Scientific American magazine, and in the following year, 01238 magazine listed him as one of Harvard’s one hundred most influential graduates. He writes for Slate, where he won the Lowell Thomas gold medal for travel journalism, and he has contributed to The New Yorker, Time, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Forbes. He is a fellow of the New America Foundation and the chairman of the media reform organization Free Press. He lives in New York.

Alle Produktbeschreibungen

Kundenrezensionen

Es gibt noch keine Kundenrezensionen auf Amazon.de

5 Sterne

4 Sterne

3 Sterne

2 Sterne

1 Sterne

Noch keine Kundenrezensionen vorhanden.

Kundenrezension verfassen

Die hilfreichsten Kundenrezensionen auf Amazon.com ^(beta)

Amazon.com: 4.5 von 5 Sternen 100 Rezensionen

82 von 87 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich

5.0 von 5 Sternen Brilliant and Informative 26. August 2010

Von William Polm - Ver�ffentlicht auf Amazon.com

Format:Gebundene Ausgabe|Amazon Vine™ Rezension (Was ist das?)

Warning: This is not light reading. The book is well-written but is not designed as entertainment. If, however, you are concerned about the Internet and potentially where it might go in the near future, or more specifically, how it might wind up controlled, this book will be an interesting and informative read. Important too because communication and information dissemination are vital to the freedom of us all.

Columbia University Professor Tim Wu takes us on an in-depth tour of the history of the communication empires of telephone, radio, television, and now the Internet. Wu's analyses and conclusions are both brilliant as well as at times somewhat surprising. Every page gives evidence of Wu's thorough research, careful thinking and insights that went into the writing of this fine work.

The internet has become part of the lives of almost everyone, with its freeing and empowering presence; in fact in important ways it has become indispensable. A not-too-surprising worry might be that the federal government may someday try to control it, not so overwhelmingly as does the government of China of course, but the possibility is there.

What Wu so sagatiously points out is that that threat of control could just as easily, or actually more easily, come from the private sector, because in fact the existence of the internet and its smooth functioning are dependent, not on the government, but private enterprise. A different kind of monopoly looms ahead of us as a distinct danger, and this present information age presents new policy and regulation challenges.

One hopes that the right government officials at the federal level take heed to this awesomely researched book.

If you would like to understand more accurately recent decades as well as the present time the huge corporations that have in the past but also could one of these days control the ways and means of communication, by all means give this worthy work a read.

Highly recommended.

39 von 44 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich

5.0 von 5 Sternen A complex, complete and compelling story of business 29. Oktober 2010

Von Mark P. McDonald - Ver�ffentlicht auf Amazon.com

Format:Gebundene Ausgabe|Amazon Vine™ Rezension (Was ist das?)

The Master Switch is part history, business theory and technology presented in a clear and enjoyable read. This is neither a business book, nor a history book, nor a novel but it has the best elements of all three. Some advice for the reader, be prepared to read a book about business information and technology this is deep, complex, expansive and thoroughly enjoyable.

Wu demonstrates throughout the book his ability to research and capture the historical events that led to the world we have today and present them more like James Michener than a dry recitation. The details and descriptions led me to feel like I was reading a historical novel more than a business book. Yet all of the conversation revolves round issues of information, technology and business ownership of it.

Wu demonstrates his business thinking through the book and research findings. This is a business book as it discusses how information and new technologies often start out as an explosion of small companies that coalesce into a few dominate firms that then often explode into smaller more innovative companies. Those ideas, the decisions and actions behind them are the context that gives the business history context.

The Master Switch is a rare combination of history, theory and technology. People looking to read the book from one of these perspectives will either be delighted or deeply disappointed. As a history, the book is a delight as I learned things I never knew before. As a business book, one with a very clear argument, sequential prose and an explicit `bottom line' this book suffers because it meanders through the history parts. Readers looking for a business book should reset their expectations and get the Master Switch. Reset their expectations from the perspective that rather than loading your brain with `programmed' messages, it may be better to get a broader perspective that will let you think through these critical issues. Setting your expectation to read something enjoyable, informative and comprehensive and you will not be disappointed.

31 von 35 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich

5.0 von 5 Sternen The Incredible History of Information Technology 22. September 2010

Von Veil_Lord - Ver�ffentlicht auf Amazon.com

Format:Gebundene Ausgabe|Amazon Vine™ Rezension (Was ist das?)

Unless you're very young, you have memory of the "Dark Ages" of technology. Yes, there was a time before the Internet...even a time before the ancient 14 kbs modem. I know it's hard for us to believe, but you used to have to be there if somebody was calling AND you didn't know who it was until you picked up the phone! The answering machine could have been available in the 1950s, but why didn't they come out until a few decades ago?

The book has interesting points on technology cycles, which I'll get into in a moment, but first I'd like to congratulate the author on doing such a great job of giving a background history lesson. The topic helps because the history of information empires is every bit as interesting as the rise of military empires. It's all about strategies, "bloody" battles, and luck. It's just the weapons used that differ. Still, most of us have seen even exciting history made boring by poor writing. Mr. Wu keeps things interesting by giving the personal reasons for certain decisions and the circumstances leading to them, not just a bunch of dry dates. Some of the history discussed I was familiar with, but a lot of it was brand new to me.

Several ideas presented on the cycles were thought provoking. Most of us are conditioned to immediately think monopoly = bad, but the point of view of the monopolists helps explain why society allowed them to exist. For example, before modern telephone infrastructure existed it almost took a gigantic AT&T to have the drive to force to link up every person to a phone line; while their methods of dealing with opposition were at times abhorrent, they still succeeded in using the monopoly's advantages (economies of scale, no duplication of research by different companies, steady income, etc.) to do a great deal of good. Bell Labs not only researched phone related technologies for the company but also provided resources and advancements in entirely unrelated areas. On the other hand, all was not altruistic. The same advantages that helped it expand and provide service also stifled progress as the monopoly jealously guarded itself against competitors and devoured or squashed possible competitors. They succeeded in connecting nearly everybody for the common good, even rural farms that likely would have been unconnected far longer because of greater costs per user in small population areas. However, those who are old enough will remember when there was only one choice of phone and it was an AT&T phone only. Once AT&T was broken up, we saw tremendous advances in technology and cost benefits to customers. The point being, things aren't purely black and white.

The issues of information control and free speech were also fascinating. To me the most interesting was censorship in Hollywood. It's a lesson in unintended consequences. The big studios' very "monopoly" allowed them to succumb to rules of conduct that had married couples depicted sleeping in separate beds for years. In that case rules came from the private sector in the form of religious groups threatening boycotts. There too you see a dichotomy. On one hand, the threat was private individuals in a sense voting with their money and what could be more democratic than voting? On the other hand though, people who didn't agree with those rules had their ability to watch uncensored materials taken away from them in the name of somebody else's view of the public good. It's this kind of struggle for balance we see over and over and over again with the advent of new technologies.

I love reading about history and watching documentaries. The adage "History repeats itself." is shown to be true time after time. It's funny how we all think we're so unique, doing things for the first time, but looking back (in some form) most everything's been done before. From the phones, to radio, to the Internet, you can see how the cycle of inventor becomes a wide open free-for-all becomes a tightly controlled industry, and eventually is usurped by some new idea from the outside that changes the rules of the game. It's all one big cycle of progress.

Now if only I could figure out what the next major cycle will be, I'd be a very rich man...

› Gehen Sie zu Amazon.com, um alle 100 Rezensionen zu sehen 4.5 von 5 Sternen

Waren diese Rezensionen hilfreich? Wir wollen von Ihnen h�ren.

Kunden diskutieren