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Collins examines the historical development of Motorola's Iridium global telecommunications project, which sought to provide cellular voice service to any point on Earth using a network of 77 low-orbiting satellites... Iridium's Apollo-like saga will capture the interest of general readers in engineering, science, history, sociology, and business, and will serve as an excellent capstone case study. Technical discussions are easy to understand, and the extensive endnotes and bibliography will satisfy the most rigorous scholar.
This is an ambitious book that connects technology, capitalism, and globalization. It is all that more audacious because it uses a failed communications platform and business model to make these connections... Although Iridium was a business failure, its legacy continues to be a set of cultural, social, and political expectations about global flows of information and capital. As Collins forcefully reminds us, globalization is not a given, but was (and continues to be) "actively fashioned" by those who seek "to project market values, power, and control over the totality of the planet."
Engaging, informative, and thought provoking, A Telephone for the World should prove to be of particular interest to business and economic historians skeptical of neoliberal pieties about innovation, to media and communications historians intrigued by the evolution of spectrum management, and to cultural and political historians fascinated by the zeitgeist of the 1990s.
An important and revealing book that expertly interacts with a range of fields and disciplines.
A brilliant analysis of the practices of multiple stakeholders that constructed a global satellite communication system in the 1990s. Motorola engineers, the US government, and international organizations and investors—riding the neo-liberal wave of enthusiasm for deregulation, privatization, and individual autonomy—projected local aspirations onto a global screen depicting a market-driven, interconnected world without borders. Collins eloquently shows how their ambitions were subverted by utopian visions of a 'united nations of Iridium' that glossed over the capacities of indigenous actors to market expensive, underperforming cellphones in diverse cultural settings.
A thoroughly engaging and thoughtfully critical analysis of a 1990s project to construct worldwide telephony, working at the edge of techno-scientific knowledge and capabilities. Fundamental reading for managers and engineers engaged in global technical projects, as well as for scholars and citizens seeking to understand the operational and cultural complexity of such efforts.
This provocative book brings together Martin Collins’s deep understanding of the history of technology and of the theoretical questions involved in analyzing globalization. Its case study of Motorola’s global satellite venture, Iridium, examines the enthusiastic visions of the post–Cold War era, the company’s stunning collapse in the late 1990s, and the system’s rebirth for mostly military uses after September 11. Throughout, Iridium serves as a rich lens through which to explore the varied impulses—and contradictions—that fashioned 'the global as a way of life.' Highly recommended!
A Telephone for the World charts the entrepreneurial rise, precipitous collapse, and military resurrection of Iridium, the space-based communication system. In Martin Collins’s hands, the zealous implementation of a world-encompassing technology serves a powerful archaeology of present-day globality. Much more than a case study, this eagerly awaited work is histoire du temps présent at its very best. Masterly.
About
Book Details
Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x 9
Pages
280
ISBN
9781421424835
Illustration Description
18 b&w photos, 5 line drawings
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
1. Iridium and the Global Age
2. The Global and the Engineers
3. The Global and Iridium the Business
4. "Freedom to Communicate"
5. From "It's a bird, it's a phone" to "Edsels in the
Preface
Introduction
1. Iridium and the Global Age
2. The Global and the Engineers
3. The Global and Iridium the Business
4. "Freedom to Communicate"
5. From "It's a bird, it's a phone" to "Edsels in the sky"
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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