As catalysts of our present global condition, telegraphs are emblems of modernity. The establishment of a worldwide network of landline and submarine cable connections in the mid-nineteenth century fostered the emergence of new structures and patterns of interaction on a global scale. World politics and a global economy only became possible with the creation of “global communication electric.”

This book examines the emergence of this global media system between 1860 and 1930 in four sections—"Inter|Nationalisms," "Agents|Actors," "Use|News," and "Space|Time"—that aim to broaden and challenge popular conceptions of telegraphy. In exploring the varied uses of telegraphy, real or imagined, Global Communication Electric expands the notion of the telegraph as a globalizing medium: of connection as well as friction; of political, social, and economic entanglement as well as disentanglement; and of crossing as well as creating distance in space and time.

M. Michaela Hampf is professor of North American history in the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. She is coeditor, most recently, with Maryann Snyder-Körber of Machine: Bodies, Genders, Technologies. Simone Müller-Pohl is assistant professor of North American history at the University of Freiburg. She has published widely on the actor networks driving global communication.

— R. Avance, University of Pennsylvania, Choice