America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940

by Claude S. Fischer

Book Overview

The telephone looms large in our lives, as ever present in modern societies as cars and television. Claude Fischer presents the first social history of this vital but little-studied technology--how we... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520086473
• Release Date: March 1994
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 442 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.9" x 1.1" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Technology in the modern age

By using the telephone as a case study, Fischer examines the role of technology as an instrument in modern life. The first chapter provides a terrific overview of the academic literature on technology, though given the time span covered by the book, it does not address the Internet. The book is also unusual in that it actually relies on data when making claims about the telephone and the world that emerged around it.