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

by Chandler, Alfred D.; Cortada, James W.

• ISBN13: 9780195127010
• ISBN10: 0195127013
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-08-10
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

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.

Author Biography

Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. is Isidor Straus Professor of Business History, Emeritus, at Harvard Business School.
James W. Cortada is an Executive at IBM Global Services.

Table of Contents

Contributors	xi
The Information Age in Historical Perspective: Introduction	3	(36)
Alfred D. Chandler Jr.
Early American Origins of the Information Age	39	(16)
Richard D. Brown
Recasting the Information Infrastructure for the Industrial Age	55	(52)
Richard R. John
Business Use of Information and Technology during the Industrial Age	107	(30)
JoAnne Yates
The Threshold of the Information Age: Radio, Television, and Motion Pictures Mobilize the Nation	137	(40)
Margaret Graham
Progenitors of the Information Age: The Development of Chips and Computers	177	(40)
James W. Cortada
Information Technology Management Since 1960	217	(40)
Richard L. Nolan
Computers in U.S. Households Since 1977	257	(24)
Lee S. Sproull
The Information Age: Continuties and Differences	281	(20)
Alfred D. Chandler Jr.
James W. Cortada
Notes	301	(44)
Bibliographic Essay on the Role of Information in the Transformation of the United States	345	(18)
Index	363