The Telephone: A New History

From the bestselling author of Chaos and The Information, a sweeping history of the instrument that created modern life. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell spoke the words “Mr. Watson―come here―I want to see you” into a contraption he called the telephone, and for the first time a voice was carried along a wire. For a century, this feat has been celebrated as a triumph of individual ingenuity and vision. In fact, the invention was a contest replete with bribery, fraud, and speculation, and no one, not even its inventors, realized what it was good for or how ubiquitous it would become. Over the next century, the phone would prove less an invention than a continuous revolution. It would teach us new words (starting with the once-unfamiliar “hello” and “goodbye”) and a new way to speak, with instant reaction, instant feeling, instant possibilities. It would create an all-female profession―the operator―that by 1920 outnumbered nurses and waitresses put together. It would enable the skyscraper, the world war, the assembly line, and the multinational corporation. And the Bell Telephone Company would become the largest monopoly in history: the sole owner of every phone in America.