A Nation Transformed by Information: How Information Has Shaped the United States from Colonial Times to the Present [Hardcover]

Alfred D. Chandler Jr. (Editor), James W. Cortada (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 10, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0195127013 | ISBN-13: 978-0195127010

This book makes the startling case that North Americans were getting on the "information highway" as early as the 1700's, and have been using it as a critical building block of their social, economic, and political world ever since.
By the time of the founding of the United States, there was a postal system and roads for the distribution of mail, copyright laws to protect intellectual property, and newspapers, books, and broadsides to bring information to a populace that was building a nation on the basis of an informed electorate. In the 19th century, Americans developed the telegraph, telephone, and motion pictures, inventions that further expanded the reach of information. In the 20th century they added television, computers, and the Internet, ultimately connecting themselves to a whole world of information.
From the beginning North Americans were willing to invest in the infrastructure to make such connectivity possible. This book explores what the deployment of these technologies says about American society. The editors assembled a group of contributors who are experts in their particular fields and worked with them to create a book that is fully integrated and cross-referenced.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Does the Information Age predate computers? Does it, in fact, predate the Industrial Age? Though this thesis isn't explicitly examined in A Nation Transformed by Information: How Information Has Shaped the United States from Colonial Times to the Present, the reader can't help but think about it throughout. Editors Alfred D. Chandler Jr. and James W. Cortada assembled a healthy mix of historians and management consultants to write the history of information services in America, and the very mild pro-business bias is more than balanced by the deeper insight into the companies and corporations that did much to spur technological change.

Fascinating nuggets of post-McLuhan media history lie within this sober analysis; it's startling to read of the antebellum U.S. Post Office refusing to deliver abolitionist materials to slave states, for example. These help to contextualize the information architecture we take for granted, as well as the innovations made possible by this architecture--imagine 50-story buildings without telephones. Though the editors profess no gift of prophecy for themselves or their authors, A Nation Transformed by Information will still give canny readers something to think about as they make their way through the Information Age. --Rob Lightner

Review

"A grand story, stretching from colonial newspapers to the Internet. Information has been a driving force in American for 300 years, and anyone who wants to understand its role today would be well advised to read this book."--Hal Varian, University of California at Berkeley

"The chapters of this wonderful book take us through two centuries of technological, economic, and business history. The description and analysis of the present context and how it is likely to evolve is as rich as the historical analysis of the factors molding the use of information in the American economy in earlier years. What a treat!"--Richard R. Nelson, Columbia University

"This book provides a marvelous demonstration that the information didn't spring full blown from the creators of the world wide web, but has roots that reach back over three hundred years. The creation, propagation, and dissemenation of information has been a central characteristic of American life since the establishment of printing presses in multiple centers of the colonial economy. Through a well linked set of essays going forward through technological systems including the post office, the telegraph, the telephone, accounting and filing, radio, motion pictures, to computers and the internet, both the continuities and the discontinuities are made apparent. The several authors engage not only their readers, but each other as well. A Nation Transformed by Information is important reading not only for historians, but for anyone who wants to understand the age of dot.com."--Sheldon Hochheiser, Corporate Historian, AT&T

"This collection represents a timely and accomplished effort to provide invaluable historical perspectives on the long road to America's contemporary, information-rich society. Readers will rapidly appreciate that the Information Age, for all its novelty, has emerged from durable private- and public-sector commitments to broadening and speeding this nation's information flows."--Philip Scranton, Rutgers University and Hagley Museum and Library

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 404 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (August 10, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195127013
• ISBN-13: 978-0195127010
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,423,024 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An exciting history of information media., September 21, 2000

By 

Kurt A. Johnson (North-Central Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Nation Transformed by Information: How Information Has Shaped the United States from Colonial Times to the Present (Hardcover)

This book is a collection of essays on the movement of information, and how it has transformed the United States from its colonial beginnings to today. At the very beginning, the founders of the country subsidized the transportation of newspapers through the postal system; this allowed the free flow of information between cities and states, across the entire continent. As technology increased, it inevitably speeded and expanded the amount of information flowing throughout the country--from the railroad, through the telegraph, telephone, radio, motion pictures, television, and on into computers.

This book is an exciting history of information media. Though written by no less than seven contributors, it pulls together into seamless whole, almost as if written by one author. The depth of information is breathtaking, and the conclusions reached are fascinating. Indeed, I think that they admirably proved their contention that there was continuity in the development of information media, and I myself repeatedly saw history repeat itself through their narrative, right up to today.

This is a fascinating book, and one that I recommend without reservation.

8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good subject, but poor editing, June 8, 2001

By 

W. Mckinnon (Rancho Cordova, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Nation Transformed by Information: How Information Has Shaped the United States from Colonial Times to the Present (Hardcover)

I bought this book because my work is in information reporting and I thought it would provide an interesting perspective. It did succeed at that. Because I come from a technical background, I had a little trouble getting started with the book, until I released it was written from a sociology background. Once I got past that I enjoyed the book except for the ...

extremely poor editing. There were numerous grammatical and sentence structure errors, contradicting statements misspellings and general redundancy that really detracted from the information being presented.

4.0 out of 5 stars Food for thought, August 1, 2011

By 

Alice in Wonderland - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: A Nation Transformed by Information: How Information Has Shaped the United States from Colonial Times to the Present (Hardcover)

In many ways the United States always was the most modern state. The first of the modern democracies, organized on rationalistic lines, mapped with modern mapping techniques, its population movements documented in censuses, and ever embracing new technologies. This book is a collection of essays on how changes in technology, and consequently information sharing, changed the country and created the nation we see today.

This is definitely a book on a very interesting subject. It has some editing problems that really should have been identified before the final publication, but nonetheless it really is a good read. It's great food for thought.

(Review of A Nation Transformed by Information by Alfred D. Chandler Jr.)