The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society (Paperback)

~ James Beniger (Author)
Key Phrases: western storekeepers, concrete open systems, large wholesale houses, New York, United States, World War (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Rich and fascinating...The book is thoroughly enjoyable reading, partly because the author has pulled the strands together from so many different fields with such obvious thoroughness...I know of no other source that provides such a rich cultural history of our field. (Information Processing & Managment )

This book is designed to be the synthetic work on the 'Information Society' and its origins, and by all rights it will be. It is beautifully done and is built to last...Everything about the book is intelligent. (Critical Review )

A masterly treatment of some of the most imporant development in the making of modern society. Beniger's book will take its place alongside the four or five books of the past twenty years which have most influenced our understanding of current changes, not just in the United States but the industrial world as a whole. (Journal of American Studies )

As systems involving people and machines increaase in size, complexity and speed of operation, they confront recurring problems of coherence and control...The contribution of The Control Revolution by James R. Benigeris to describe and analyze the range of methods modern societies use to keep things from falling apart...It argues that today's dependence on information technology has its origins in practical needs spawned by the Industrial Revolution...The book offers a skillful cross-disciplinary synthesis that draws on hundreds of scholarly studies in the history of technology, business history and social science...[A] challenging, highly readable work. (New York Times Book Review )

Product Description

Why do we find ourselves living in an Information Society? How did the collection, processing, and communication of information come to play an increasingly important role in advanced industrial countries relative to the roles of matter and energy? And why is this change recent--or is it?

James Beniger traces the origin of the Information Society to major economic and business crises of the past century. In the United States, applications of steam power in the early 1800s brought a dramatic rise in the speed, volume, and complexity of industrial processes, making them difficult to control. Scores of problems arose: fatal train wrecks, misplacement of freight cars for months at a time, loss of shipments, inability to maintain high rates of inventory turnover. Inevitably the Industrial Revolution, with its ballooning use of energy to drive material processes, required a corresponding growth in the exploitation of information: the Control Revolution.

Between the 1840s and the 1920s came most of the important information-processing and communication technologies still in use today: telegraphy, modern bureaucracy. rotary power printing, the postage stamp, paper money, typewriter, telephone, punch-card processing, motion pictures, radio, and television. Beniger shows that more recent developments in microprocessors, computers, and telecommunications are only a smooth continuation of this Control Revolution. Along the way he touches on many fascinating topics: why breakfast was invented, how trademarks came to be worth more than the companies that own them, why some employees wear uniforms, and whether time zones will always be necessary.

The book is impressive not only for the breadth of its scholarship but also for the subtlety and force of its argument. It will be welcomed by sociologists, economists, historians of science and technology, and all curious in general.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 508 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (March 15, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674169867
• ISBN-13: 978-0674169869
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #477,901 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ground breaking, empirical work, cuts thru Info Society hype, October 6, 1999

By A Customer

If you have, like Beniger, asked the question "Why is information so critical for our current mode of production? Why Information? Why Now?" You need to read this book.

His basic argument is that the seeds of our contemporary information intensive society was sown way back during the start of the Industrial Revolution. In fact, information was critical to make the transition from feudal to industrial society. The reason being that the industrial revolution (entailing mechanization, steam power, assembly line etc.) speeded up the process of production to the extent that human beings on their own physical powers would be unable to keep up with the speed of production. In feudal/agricultural based societies, the production process was slow (i.e., ploughing using ox) and it remained in control of the individual. With the industrial revolution, the production process was speeded, resulting in what he terms as "a crisis of control." This reminds me a lot of the Charlie Chaplin movie "Modern Times." Don't know if you have seen it, if you have, you know exactly what I am talking about.

In order to resolve the crisis of control emerging from the speeded-up production process, you need information. Example: Steam engine travels faster than a human being. How do you keep track of the train if you can't run faster than it? String telegraph line along the railway track connecting different stations along the way. When train reaches station, the station master informs the next station about the next estimated arrival time. Think about it, if you didn't have a schedule or an estimated time of arrival/departure, it would be impossible to operate a passenger train service or a goods service. Speed brings uncertainty which can only be resolved through the acquisition of information.

Today, just-in-time production (epitomizing the heights of efficiency and speed) would not be possible without flow of information to control this process.

This is a great book! Much recommended for people who would like to exercise their grey cells. WARNING: Business travellers nourished on Tofflerian hype may have indigestion!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This is a highly original work spanning many disciplines., August 4, 1998

By A Customer

Beniger has synthesized findings from scores of fields to produce a plausible and remarkably original view of economic change and commercial development in America. While some of his explanations are a bit murky and some of his linkages a bit half-baked, this a brilliant book. Nobody to my knowledge, saving perhaps only Alfred Chandler, has done a better job of explaining the evolution of administrative systems or the linkages between that evolution and the advances in information technology occuring in the 19th and early 20th centuries. I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in management control, competitive dynamics, or technological/economic history.

I only wish the author had taken one more cut at simplifying and clarifing his basic thesis, It is also a pity that the volume was written prior to the development of transaction cost economics.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book, October 3, 1999

By	David McElroy (Birmingham, Ala. USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is an excellent synthesis of great information from a number of different fields. I want to point out (for anyone reading these "reviews") that the person who gave this book only one star is actually referring to a book by another author. The two authors have books with similar titles. For that reason, I urge you to disregard that irrelevant ranking and read this excellent book for yourself.