John A. Britton. Cables, Crises, and the Press

The introduction, conclusion, and 13 narrative chapters of Cables, Crises, and the Press: The Geopolitics of the New International Information System in the Americas, 1866–1903 constitute an important and impressive contribution toward understanding global media over the last thirty-odd years of the nineteenth century. This book draws upon politics, diplomacy, press coverage, popular literature, and public opinion regarding hemispheric crises and conflicts that occurred in places such as Chile, Venezuela, Argentina, and Cuba. Those tensions rapidly reached much of the world, largely due to the global expansion of undersea cable and continental telegraph systems and networks. The interplay between global politics and finance, the rising influence of newspapers, the impact on global trade, and the dawning realization of politicians and diplomats that their ignorance of the global reach and potential power of rapid global electrical communication systems could easily place their careers and administrations in peril are carefully, thoroughly, and persuasively analyzed and explained. Furthermore, John A. Britton sustains this narrative in ways that keep the reader engaged and awaiting the next crisis, allowing the reader to savor both the details of a case and the overarching global transformations evident in this study.

Diplomacy · Economic history · Geopolitics · Ignorance · Literature · Media studies · Narrative · Newspaper · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Sociology · Chinese history and philosophy · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · History of Science and Medicine · Law