292. Summary: The Network: The Battle for the Airwaves and the Birth of the Communications Age, by Scott Woolley

<p><em>The Network</em>, by Scott Woolley, tells the history of wireless communications, and the stories of the characters that were a part of it. It’s the first book strictly about media history that I’m summarizing and adding to my <a href= "https://kadavy.net/best-media-studies-theory-books/">best media books</a> list.</p> <h3>Wireless communications start with wired communications</h3> <p>Wireless communications today of course include cell phones, but <em>The Network</em> takes us from the wireless telegraph, to radio, to television, and finally to satellites. First, it gives a little background on the history of the electric telegraph, the invention which suddenly made it possible to move, in minutes, messages that used to take weeks to reach their destinations.</p> <p>The electric telegraph was able to change the world thanks to one simple action: The ability to move a piece of metal at the end of a wire. That was enough to develop codes that could transmit messages, based upon the simple movement of that piece of metal. This process started in 1822, when Christian Órsted attached a copper wire to a battery and saw a nearby compass needle move.</p> <p>There was a several-decade-long race to develop an electric telegraph. The first transatlantic cable was opened for business by 1866. A big customer of these telegraph services were stock traders, who could buy shares in London, sell them a few seconds later in New York, and always profit if their trades were executed in time.</p> <p>Morse code was the winning format for turning the movement of a piece of metal into messages that could travel around the world. A claim in <em>The Network</em> I couldn’t find a source for, but that sounds pretty cool: The clouds in New York City at night used to have projected on them news, election results, and sports scores – in Morse code.</p> <h3>From a worthless accidental discovery to worthwhile wireless</h3> <p>The history of wireless communication started with a discovery as accidental as Christian Órsted’s: Heinrich He