It's easy to think that today's revolutions in communications business and many areas of
daily life are unprecedented. The changes we experience nearly every day may be happening
faster than those of the past and on multiple fronts. But our ancestors at times were just as
bewildered by rapid upheavals in what we now call networks: the physical links that bind any
society together. In this fascinating book Tom Wheeler vividly describes the two great network
revolutions of the past and uses them to put in perspective the confusion uncertainty and
excitement most people feel about changes happening now changes that make up the third network
revolution. The first major network revolution was Gutenberg's invention of movable-type
printing in the fifteenth century which created the first mass-information economy. This book
its millions of predecessors and history-shifting trends such as the Reformation the
Renaissance and the scientific revolutions of the past 500 years would not have been possible
without that one invention. The second revolution came early in the nineteenth century with the
inventions of the railroad and the telegraph. Never before had people been able to travel or
communicate over long distances faster than a horse could gallop. Together these two
inventions compressed space and time and in the process upended centuries of stability
transformed economies and redrew the map of the world. Wheeler contrasts these past
revolutions with our experience today when rapid-fire changes in networking are disrupting the
nature of work personal privacy education the media and nearly every other aspect of modern
life. The principal manifestation of this revolution-one that touches each of us directly and
shapes both commerce and culture-is how we connect with each other. Our networks have always
defined who we are both economically and sociologically. Now technology has delivered us into
history's latest network revolution changing everything it touches. Outlining what's next
Wheeler describes how artificial intelligence virtual reality blockchain and the need for
cybersecurity will prolong the third network revolution well into the future.
