Serving A Wired World

In the public imagination, Silicon Valley embodies the newest of the new—the cutting edge, the forefront of our social networks and our globally interconnected lives. But the pressures exerted on many of today’s communications tech workers mirror those of a much earlier generation of laborers in a very different space: the London workforce that helped launch and shape the massive telecommunications systems operating at the turn of the twentieth century. As the Victorian age ended, affluent Britons came to rely on information exchanged along telegraph and telephone wires for seamless communication: an efficient and impersonal mode of sharing thoughts, demands, and desires. This embrace of seemingly unmediated communication obscured the labor involved in the smooth operation of the network, much as our reliance on social media and app interfaces does today. Serving a Wired World is a history of information service work embedded in the daily maintenance of liberal Britain and the status quo in the early years of the twentieth century. As Katie Hindmarch-Watson shows, the administrators and engineers who crafted these telecommunications systems created networks according to conventional gender perceptions and social hierarchies, modeling the operation of the networks on the dynamic between master and servant. Despite attempts to render telegraphists and telephone operators invisible, these workers were quite aware of their crucial role in modern life, and they posed creative challenges to their marginalized status—from organizing labor strikes to participating in deviant sexual exchanges. In unexpected ways, these workers turned a flatly neutral telecommunications network into a revolutionary one, challenging the status quo in ways familiar today.

In the public imagination, Silicon Valley embodies the newest of the new—the cutting edge, the forefront of our social networks and our globally interconnected lives. But the pressures exerted on many of today’s communications tech workers mirror those of a much earlier generation of laborers in a very different space: the London workforce that helped launch and shape the massive telecommunications systems operating at the turn of the twentieth century. As the Victorian age ended, affluent Britons came to rely on information exchanged along telegraph and telephone wires for seamless communication: an efficient and impersonal mode of sharing thoughts, demands, and desires. This embrace of seemingly unmediated communication obscured the labor involved in the smooth operation of the network, much as our reliance on social media and app interfaces does today. Serving a Wired World is a history of information service work embedded in the daily maintenance of liberal Britain and the status quo in the early years of the twentieth century. As Katie Hindmarch-Watson shows, the administrators and engineers who crafted these telecommunications systems created networks according to conventional gender perceptions and social hierarchies, modeling the operation of the networks on the dynamic between master and servant. Despite attempts to render telegraphists and telephone operators invisible, these workers were quite aware of their crucial role in modern life, and they posed creative challenges to their marginalized status—from organizing labor strikes to participating in deviant sexual exchanges. In unexpected ways, these workers turned a flatly neutral telecommunications network into a revolutionary one, challenging the status quo in ways familiar today.

A valuable guide to making technology work for your business Now that the Internet bubble has burst, financial service professionals are looking for more realistic ways to use technology to their advantage. J. K. Lasser Pro Taming Technology offers easy and effective methods to do just that. This comprehensive guide puts what's available today in technology into a cohesive framework-one that offers a systematic way to think about and implement technology-to build and strengthen relationships with clients and prospects. J. K. Lasser Pro Taming Technology is a valuable resource for financial service professionals seeking clear, practical advice on using technology and the Internet to acquire and retain profitable business. This book provides readers with easy-to-use ideas and techniques to successfully incorporate technology into their business promotion.

Over 50 of the world's most important market movers explore the impact the information age has on business, with contributions from renowned leaders such as Bill Gates, Al Gore, Rupert Murdoch, and Peter Cochrane.

The Information Age has ushered in significant change not only to the work people do and how they communicate with each other, but also to the broad political landscape. In Digital Democracy: Policy and politics in the Wired World, editors Cynthia J. Alexander and Leslie A. Pal present 12 important essays by Canadian and American scholars on the impact of cyberspace on politics and the implications this impact has for our future as private citizens.

Cooperative rule -- Pedagogies of community development -- Anti-empire, development, and emergency rule -- Uganda's anticolonial cooperative movement -- Cooperatives and decolonization in postwar Britain.

"By the 1950s, social anthropologists were at the forefront of debates about culture, society, and the limits to economic development in Britain and the British Empire. This book explains how anthropology rose to such prominence and how its influence dispersed across the humanities and social sciences. Part institutional history of social anthropology's imperial formation, part cultural history of the discipline's impact, this is the first account of social anthropology's pivotal role in Britain's midcentury intellectual culture"--

In the 1930s, British colonial officials introduced drama performances, broadcasting services, and publication bureaus into Africa under the rubric of colonial development. They used theater, radio, and mass-produced books to spread British values and the English language across the continent. This project proved remarkably resilient: well after the end of Britain’s imperial rule, many of its cultural institutions remained in place. Through the 1960s and 1970s, African audiences continued to attend Shakespeare performances and listen to the BBC, while African governments adopted English-language textbooks produced by metropolitan publishing houses. Imperial Encore traces British drama, broadcasting, and publishing in Africa between the 1930s and the 1980s—the half century spanning the end of British colonial rule and the outset of African national rule. Caroline Ritter shows how three major cultural institutions—the British Council, the BBC, and Oxford University Press—integrated their work with British imperial aims, and continued this project well after the end of formal British rule. Tracing these institutions and the media they produced through the tumultuous period of decolonization and its aftermath, Ritter offers the first account of the global footprint of British cultural imperialism.