Available:*
Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... | 30000010362998 | HE7631 C34 1997 | Open Access Book | Gift Book | Searching... |
On Order
Summary
Summary
This text covers current and future changes in the telecommunications industry, and also aims to provide a broader, more hypothetical view of the implications of such developments.
Reviews 3
Booklist Review
"Bonded together by the invisible strands of global communications, humanity may find that peace and prosperity are born from the death of distance." So concludes a superb book describing how advances in communications (especially telecommunications) are rapidly obliterating geography, borders, and time zones as relevant factors in business and personal lives. The author, a writer for the Economist, offers an international view of the world that is neither American nor British. He contends that the elimination of distance will be the single most important economic force to reshape society until the middle of the next century, and sets forth numerous ideas on the telecommunications revolution and its ramifications. Individuals with valuable ideas, initiatives, and strong business plans will attract global venture capital, enabling them to compete with large companies anywhere. This is a must read book that challenges our concept of the future and our place within it, both as professionals and in personal terms. --Mary Whaley
Choice Review
This volume chronicles the telecommunications revolution, in telephones, TVs, computers, primarily of the past decade, and speculates on its future effects on our lives. The theme is how society has been changed and will continue to change, shrinking distance measured in communications speed, and effecting change in employment, entertainment, gambling, shopping, demographics, government, and market competition as well as social conversation. This volume is thoughtful and informative journalism at its best; it reads like a series from The Economist special reports (e.g., a recent one on telecommunications in the September 13, 1997 issue), not surprising since Cairncross is a senior editor at The Economist. Among her predictions: cities will become (more) "centers of entertainment and culture," "in the electronic village there will be little true privacy," "more individual responsibility and less government intervention," and "distance learning" will alter the delivery and lower the cost of higher education. Undergraduate, practitioner, and general reader. R. A. Miller; Wesleyan University
Library Journal Review
A noted journalist, author, and senior editor at the Economist, Cairncross gives a provocative explanation of how the world will change over the next 50 years. She sees the speed of communication as the most important economic force shaping the upcoming century and addresses the enormous changes sweeping through the process of communications. Cairncross predicts that distance, location, and company size will be overtaken by customization, brand awareness, niches, mobility, and loose-knittedness as major factors in business. A deluge of information will occur alongside a loss of privacy, business will operate in an inversion of home and office, and national authority will decline with reduced immigration and a rebirth of cities and a rebalance of political power. With less emphasis on taxation in a cultural community of world peace, markets will be near-frictionless and global yet with more local provision. Light on jargon, this perceptive, easy-to-read book is highly recommended for a broad audience.Joseph W. Leonard, Miami Univ., Oxford, Ohio (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
