Ruling the waves
Subtitle: cycles of discovery, chaos, and wealth from compass to the Internet
By: Debora L. Spar.
Publisher: Harcourt
Published: 2001
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 403
Subjects: Technological innovations -- Social aspects; Technological innovations -- Economic aspects; Information technology -- Social aspects; Information technology -- Economic aspects; Internet -- Social aspects; Internet -- Economic aspects; Technology and state
Description: "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."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [385]-389) and index.