Tim Wu

The Internet Age: on the face of it, an era of unprecedented freedom in both communication and culture. Yet in the past, each major new medium, from telephone to satellite television, has crested on a wave of similar idealistic optimism, before succumbing to the inevitable undertow of industrial consolidation. Every once free and open technology has, in time, become centralized and closed; as corporate power has taken control of the 'master switch.' Today a similar struggle looms over the Internet, and as it increasingly supersedes all other media the stakes have never been higher. Part industrial expos, part examination of freedom of expression, The Master Switch reveals a crucial drama - full of indelible characters - as it has played out over decades in the shadows of global communication.

The Rise and Fall of Information Empires

The Master Switch

A history of the rise and fall of the twentieth century's leading information empires traces how Hollywood, the broadcast networks, and AT&T introduced new mediums that were eventually centralized in ways that shaped America's communications practices.

Lee Schneider

Though a bit long, it does cover everything! A fascinating view of how monopoly empires grow, diffuse, and rebuild themselves.

Keven Wang

Part industrial expose, part meditation on the nature of freedom of expression, 'The Master Switch' brings to light a crucial drama - rife with indelible characters - played out over decades in the shadows of global communication."

A New Yorker and Fortune Best Book of the Year "A must-read for all Americans who want to remain the ones deciding what they can read, watch, and listen to.” —Arianna Huffington Analyzing the strategic maneuvers of today’s great information powers—Apple, Google, and an eerily resurgent AT&T—Tim Wu uncovers a time-honored pattern in which invention begets industry and industry begets empire. It is easy to forget that every development in the history of the American information industry—from the telephone to radio to film—once existed in an open and chaotic marketplace inhabited by entrepreneurs and utopians, just as the Internet does today. Each of these, however, grew to be dominated by a monopolist or cartel. In this pathbreaking book, Tim Wu asks: will the Internet follow the same fate? Could the Web—the entire flow of American information—come to be ruled by a corporate leviathan in possession of "the master switch"? Here, Tim Wu shows how a battle royale for the Internet’s future is brewing, and this is one war we dare not tune out.

The Master Switch The Rise and Fall of Information Empires

Reviews