How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet

Awards:   Winner of <PrizeName>Honorable Mention, 2017 PROSE Awards, History of Science, Medicine and Technology category</PrizeName> 2017 Winner of <PrizeName>Winner, 2017 Wayne S. Vucinich Prize, sponsored by the Associaton for Slavic, East European &#38;#38; Eurasian Studies</PrizeName> 2017 Winner of Honorable Mention, 2017 PROSE Awards, History of Science, Medicine and Technology category 2017 Winner of Honorable Mention, 2017 PROSE Awards, History of Science, Medicine and Technology category</PrizeName> 2017 Winner of Winner, 2017 Wayne S. Vucinich Prize, sponsored by the Associaton for Slavic, East European &#38;#38; Eurasian Studies</PrizeName> 2017
Author:   Benjamin Peters (Associate Professor, University of Tulsa) ,  Sandra Braman (Professor, Texas A&M University) ,  Paul T. Jaeger (Assistant Professor, University of Maryland)
Publisher:   MIT Press Ltd
ISBN:  

9780262534666


Pages:   312
Publication Date:   08 September 2017
Recommended Age:   From 18
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
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How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet


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Awards

  • Winner of <PrizeName>Honorable Mention, 2017 PROSE Awards, History of Science, Medicine and Technology category</PrizeName> 2017
  • Winner of <PrizeName>Winner, 2017 Wayne S. Vucinich Prize, sponsored by the Associaton for Slavic, East European &#38;#38; Eurasian Studies</PrizeName> 2017
  • Winner of Honorable Mention, 2017 PROSE Awards, History of Science, Medicine and Technology category 2017
  • Winner of Honorable Mention, 2017 PROSE Awards, History of Science, Medicine and Technology category</PrizeName> 2017
  • Winner of Winner, 2017 Wayne S. Vucinich Prize, sponsored by the Associaton for Slavic, East European &#38;#38; Eurasian Studies</PrizeName> 2017

Overview

How, despite thirty years of effort, Soviet attempts to build a national computer network were undone by socialists who seemed to behave like capitalists.Between 1959 and 1989, Soviet scientists and officials made numerous attempts to network their nation-to construct a nationwide computer network. None of these attempts succeeded, and the enterprise had been abandoned by the time the Soviet Union fell apart. Meanwhile, ARPANET, the American precursor to the Internet, went online in 1969. Why did the Soviet network, with top-level scientists and patriotic incentives, fail while the American network succeeded? In How Not to Network a Nation, Benjamin Peters reverses the usual cold war dualities and argues that the American ARPANET took shape thanks to well-managed state subsidies and collaborative research environments and the Soviet network projects stumbled because of unregulated competition among self-interested institutions, bureaucrats, and others. The capitalists behaved like socialists while the socialists behaved like capitalists. After examining the midcentury rise of cybernetics, the science of self-governing systems, and the emergence in the Soviet Union of economic cybernetics, Peters complicates this uneasy role reversal while chronicling the various Soviet attempts to build a ""unified information network."" Drawing on previously unknown archival and historical materials, he focuses on the final, and most ambitious of these projects, the All-State Automated System of Management (OGAS), and its principal promoter, Viktor M. Glushkov. Peters describes the rise and fall of OGAS-its theoretical and practical reach, its vision of a national economy managed by network, the bureaucratic obstacles it encountered, and the institutional stalemate that killed it. Finally, he considers the implications of the Soviet experience for today's networked world. How, despite thirty years of effort, Soviet attempts to build a national computer network were undone by socialists who seemed to behave like capitalists.Between 1959 and 1989, Soviet scientists and officials made numerous attempts to network their nation-to construct a nationwide computer network. None of these attempts succeeded, and the enterprise had been abandoned by the time the Soviet Union fell apart. Meanwhile, ARPANET, the American precursor to the Internet, went online in 1969. Why did the Soviet network, with top-level scientists and patriotic incentives, fail while the American network succeeded? In How Not to Network a Nation, Benjamin Peters reverses the usual cold war dualities and argues that the American ARPANET took shape thanks to well-managed state subsidies and collaborative research environments and the Soviet network projects stumbled because of unregulated competition among self-interested institutions, bureaucrats, and others. The capitalists behaved like socialists while the socialists behaved like capitalists. After examining the midcentury rise of cybernetics, the science of self-governing systems, and the emergence in the Soviet Union of economic cybernetics, Peters complicates this uneasy role reversal while chronicling the various Soviet attempts to build a ""unified information network."" Drawing on previously unknown archival and historical materials, he focuses on the final, and most ambitious of these projects, the All-State Automated System of Management (OGAS), and its principal promoter, Viktor M. Glushkov. Peters describes the rise and fall of OGAS-its theoretical and practical reach, its vision of a national economy managed by network, the bureaucratic obstacles it encountered, and the institutional stalemate that killed it. Finally, he considers the implications of the Soviet experience for today's networked world.

Full Product Details

Author:   Benjamin Peters (Associate Professor, University of Tulsa) ,  Sandra Braman (Professor, Texas A&M University) ,  Paul T. Jaeger (Assistant Professor, University of Maryland)
Publisher:   MIT Press Ltd
Imprint:   MIT Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.10cm , Length: 22.90cm
ISBN:  

9780262534666


ISBN 10:   0262534665
Pages:   312
Publication Date:   08 September 2017
Recommended Age:   From 18
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

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Reviews

[A]n immersive read that covers the ground in impressive detail. * Times Higher Education * Anyone interested in the history of the internet, comparative systems, or the history of the Soviet Union should read this book. * Marginal Revolution *


[A]n immersive read that covers the ground in impressive detail. Times Higher Education Anyone interested in the history of the internet, comparative systems, or the history of the Soviet Union should read this book. Marginal Revolution


Author Information

Benjamin Peters is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Tulsa and affiliated faculty at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School.

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