![]() ![]() ![]() He's aided by the fact that his chosen industries threw up a cast of memorable, charismatic and ruthless characters: Theodore Vail, for example, the genius who created the AT&T monster David Sarnoff, who ran RCA and NBC and dictated the pace at which radio technology developed and Adolph Zukor, who created Paramount and showed what could be done when a movie corporation controls not just its stars but also its distribution outlets. These are great stories, and Wu tells them expertly. After that comes movies and the tale of how a freewheeling, chaotic and creative industry was cornered by a cartel of vertically integrated corporations which for decades channelled all cinematic creativity through a set of narrow apertures. Then there's the story of broadcast radio, a promising medium captured by RCA and NBC with the connivance of the FCC. Running through it like a strand of DNA is the story of how the Bell telephone company morphed into AT&T, one of the most fearsome monopolies in history – which was eventually broken up by the Federal Communications Commission, but has now effectively reconstituted itself. ![]() In order to establish his thesis, Wu embarks on an ambitious history of the communications industries in the 20th century. ![]()
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