The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires
Language: English
Published by Knopf, 2010
- Hardcover
- Used

Seller: Greenworld Books, arlington, TX, U.S.A.Greenworld Books
AbeBooks seller since June 20, 2025
Condition: Used - Good
£ 4.32
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
Fast Free Shipping – Good condition. It may show normal signs of use, such as light writing, highlighting, or library markings, but all pages are intact and the book is fully readable. A solid, complete copy that's ready to enjoy.
Seller Inventory # GWV.0307269930.G
- Title
- The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires
- Author
- Wu, Tim
- Publisher
- Knopf
- Publication year
- 2010
- Condition
- good
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0307269930
- ISBN 13
- 9780307269935
As Wus sweeping history shows, each of the new media of the twentieth centuryradio, telephone, television, and filmwas born free and open. Each invited unrestricted use and enterprising experiment until some would-be mogul battled his way to total domination. Here are stories of an uncommon will to power, the power over information: Adolph Zukor, who took a technology once used as commonly as YouTube is today and made it the exclusive prerogative of a kingdom called Hollywood . . . NBCs founder, David Sarnoff, who, to save his broadcast empire from disruptive visionaries, bullied one inventor (of electronic television) into alcoholic despair and another (this one of FM radio, and his boyhood friend) into suicide . . . And foremost, Theodore Vail, founder of the Bell System, the greatest information empire of all time, and a capitalist whose faith in Soviet-style central planning set the course of every information industry thereafter.
Explaining how invention begets industry and industry begets empirea progress often blessed by government, typically with stifling consequences for free expression and technical innovation alikeWu identifies a time-honored pattern in the maneuvers of todays great information powers: Apple, Google, and an eerily resurgent AT&T. A battle royal looms for the Internets future, and with almost every aspect of our lives now dependent on that network, this is one war we dare not tune out.
Part industrial exposé, part meditation on what freedom requires in the information age,The Master Switch is a stirring illumination of a drama that has played out over decades in the shadows of our national life and now culminates with terrifying implications for our future.
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Tim Wu is an author, a policy advocate, and a professor at Columbia University. In 2006, he was recognized as one of fifty leaders in science and technology by Scientific American magazine, and in the following year, 01238 magazine listed him as one of Harvard's one hundred most influential graduates. He writes for Slate, where he won the Lowell Thomas gold medal for travel journalism, and he has contributed to The New Yorker, Time, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Forbes. He is a fellow of the New America Foundation and the chairman of the media reform organization Free Press. He lives in New York.
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Greenworld Books
arlington, TX, U.S.A.
AbeBooks seller since June 20, 2025
Shipping rates within U.S.A.
| Item | 4 to 8 business days | 4 to 8 business days |
|---|---|---|
| First item | £ 0.00 | £ 0.00 |
Payment methods
Specialty
Popular booksSeller's business information
Greenworldbooks
3703 Avenue E East
Arlington, TX U.S.A. 76011
Right of withdrawal
If you are a consumer you can withdraw from the contract in accordance with the following. Consumer means any natural person who is acting for purposes which are outside his trade, business, craft or profession.
Information regarding the right of withdrawal
Statutory right to withdraw
You have the right to withdraw from this contract within 14 days without giving any reason.
The withdrawal period will expire after 14 days from the day on which you acquire, or a third party other than the carrier and indicated by you acquires, physical possession of the last good or the last lot or piece.
To exercise the right of withdrawal, electronically fill in and submit a clear statement on our website, under "My Purchases" in "My Account". We will communicate to you an acknowledgement of receipt of such a withdrawal on a durable medium (e.g. by e-mail) without delay.
To meet the withdrawal deadline, it is sufficient for you to send your communication concerning your exercise of the right of withdrawal before the withdrawal period has expired.
Effects of withdrawal
If you withdraw from this contract, we will reimburse to you all payments received from you, including the costs of delivery (except for the supplementary costs arising if you chose a type of delivery other than the least expensive type of standard delivery offered by us).
We may make a deduction from the reimbursement for loss in value of any goods supplied, if the loss is the result of unnecessary handling by you.
We will make the reimbursement without undue delay, and not later than 14 days after the day on which we are informed about your decision to withdraw from this contract.
We will make the reimbursement using the same means of payment as you used for the initial transaction, unless you have expressly agreed otherwise; in any event, you will not incur any fees as a result of such reimbursement.
We may withhold reimbursement until we have received the goods back, or you have supplied evidence of having sent back the goods, whichever is the earliest.
You shall send back the goods or hand them over to Greenworld Books, Arlington, Texas, U.S.A., without undue delay and in any event not later than 14 days from the day on which you communicate your withdrawal from this contract to us. The deadline is met if you send back the goods before the period of 14 days has expired. You will have to bear the direct cost of returning the goods. You are only liable for any diminished value of the goods resulting from the handling other than what is necessary to establish the nature, characteristics and functioning of the goods.
Exceptions to the right of withdrawal
The right of withdrawal does not apply to:
- The delivery of newspapers, journals or magazines with the exception of subscription contracts; and
- The supply of digital content which is not supplied on a tangible medium (e.g. on a CD or DVD) if you accepted when you placed your order that we could start to deliver it, and that you could not withdraw once delivery had started.