Review: Communication and Empire
| Published date | 01 June 2008 |
| Date | 01 June 2008 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200806300229 |
| Author | Jonathan Reed Winkler |
| Subject Matter | Review |
| International Journal | Spring 2008 | 521 |
| Reviews |
COMMUNICATION AND EMPIRE
Media, Markets and Globalization, 1860-1930
Dwayne R. Winseck and Robert M. Pike
Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007. xx, 429pp, US $24.95 (ISBN
978-0-8223-3928-1)
Globalization is a topic de jour in the academic world, and the last few years
have seen a flurry of new books by all manner of scholars. Some of these
works are insightful and reflect careful research, such as Kevin O’Rourke’s
and Jeffrey Williamson’s recent examination of globalization’s roots in the
19th century. Others are not, and range from the polemical to the pop treat-
ments of the phenomenon. Dwayne R. Winseck and Robert M. Pike’s recent
Communication and Empire
seeks to be among the former. While the work
is sweeping in its scope and properly centres on communications technology
as a key driving factor in globalization, this book suffers from serious analytic
and evidentiary shortcomings.
Winseck, a communications professor, and Pike, a sociologist, aim at
four main points to engage historical arguments about globalization. They
suggest that the “global media system”of companies controlling content and
delivery was far more multinational and interconnected than historians have
understood, and that national interests played a smaller role in the evolution
of the field than has been argued. They do this by looking at the development
of the international communications system, from the early years of subma-
rine cable telegraphy through the beginning of Great Depression. They also
want to reinforce the growing consensus of scholars that globalization is not
a contemporary phenomenon but one dating from the 19th century. They
wish to argue in addition that the spread of international communications
no innovation”within Arab countries (124). An equally incredible argument
is that Shi’a Iran restarted its nuclear weapons program in 2002 mainly to
deter Pakistan, because Pakistan is home to many Sunni extremists. It is un-
fortunate that the author who has considerable knowledge of the Middle East
wrote a book that is largely speculative and derivative in its arguments rather
than persuasive and original.
Hakan Tun
ç
/McMaster University
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