To the Digital Age: Research Labs, Start-up Companies and the Rise of MOS Technology [Book Review]

telegraphy covers innovation and development not only in the US and Great Britain but also Germany and British India. Beauchamp combines brief accounts of the companies that provided the service with descriptions of the advances in printing technology and operational changes that make for a well-rounded recreation of what the world of the telegraph once was like. He follows this up with an extended explanation of the continuing push for telegraphy across the oceans with submarine cables, and this lengthy chapter covers the encompassing of the globe by the turn of the century. The adoption and use of telegraphy for military purposes is an important component of the history of communications; Beauchamp lays out an interesting overview of this in the 19th century. Although various forms of mechanical telegraphy or semaphore systems had been used in Europe before—Beauchamp cites its use by Wellington in 1814—the first extensive uses of electrical telegraphy in war were during the Crimean War (1854–1856) in Europe, Indian Mutiny (1857), and American Civil War (1861–1865). The author explores the telegraphy’s utility for command and control, the continual need for trained personnel, and the ongoing issues of equipment. Beauchamp also provides an overview of the telegraph’s importance for colonial wars in British Africa, but it serves more as examples of trends than a complete account of all uses of telegraphy in colonial affairs. The second half of the work covers the second phase, that of wireless telegraphy, from its early beginnings with Marconi and others to its widespread adoption for civil and military use. Here Beauchamp puts forth an extended, clearly understandable explanation of the technological changes in wireless telegraphy, from the initial experiments by Marconi and others through the development of the arc, alternator, and vacuum-tube transmitters. Although his account is largely Anglo-centric, Beauchamp uses limited archival research in France and Germany to tease out the important story of early wireless telegraphy developments in those countries as well. Much of Beauchamp’s description of wireless telegraphy covers the adoption of this technology by militaries to solve the problems of communicating with forces on land, on water, and in the air. This is an important part of telegraphy’s story, particularly because many of the key innovations—such as the rapid advances in vacuum-tube technology—came about during wartime and must be understood in that context. Beauchamp covers the implementation of wireless telegraphy for military, naval, and aviation use on both sides of the conflict in the two world wars, in three separate chapters. His use of archival materials, particularly those in Britain’s Public Record Office, has helped to flesh out in greater detail the largely underexamined story of military and civil communications in this period. However, his account suffers because the book misses some of the key standard accounts on the subject and confuses key individuals. For example, Beauchamp misidentifies Stanford C. Hooper, the father of US naval radio, as the Office of Naval History, and he does not mention Hooper’s widely acknowledged role in the development of high power wireless telegraphy (p. 360). This reflects a larger problem of factual errors in the work that, although minimal, are disturbingly important. Still, this is a complex subject, and we can commend Beauchamp for grappling with the core story of global communications in the past two centuries. Those who are more aware of the technical methods by which we communicate globally today will appreciate this survey of this now-vanished world. History of Telegraphy is a useful launching point for further research and a laudable and necessary attempt to synthesize a significant topic.