Ruling the Waves: From the Compass to the Internet, a History of Business and Politics along the Technological Frontier

This Is A Book About Technology, And About Rules. It Is About What Happens When Technology Moves Faster Than Governments, Creating Markets That - For Some Time At Least - Have No Rules. It Is A Book About The Pioneers Who Thrive In A World Of Chaos And The Governments That Eventually Rein Them In. Beginning With The Development Of The Compass In The Early Middle Ages, Debora Spar Takes The Reader Back In Time, Looking At A Series Of Technological Revolutions That Promised, In Their Time, To Transform The Worlds Of Politics And Business. She Tells Tales Of The Printing Press And Maps; Of Telegraph, Radio, And Satellite Television; Of Software, Encryption, And The Advent Of Digital Music. At Each Of These Junctures, She Suggests, Technological Innovation Leads To Both A Wave Of Commerce And Of Chaos. Entrepreneurs Such As Samuel Morse And Rupert Murdoch Carve New Markets From The Emerging Technology And Proclaim That The Old Rules No Longer Apply.--jacket. Prologue: The View From Partenia -- The First Wave -- The Codemakers -- Radio Days -- Bskyb And The New Wave Of Television -- Last Stand Of The Cypherpunks -- Trusting Microsoft -- Space Music -- Surfing The Barbary Coast. Debora L. Spar. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 385-389) And Index.