Page 40 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol V

textiles 1817

United States and Canada and the postal, telegraph, and Barty-King, H. (1979). Girdle round the earth:The story of cable and wire-
telephone administrations (or PTTs) in other countries less and its predecessors to mark the group’s jubilee, 1929–1979. Lon-
don: William Heinemann.
suddenly found themselves seriously threatened, for the Dibner, B. (1959). The Atlantic cable. Norwalk, CT: Burndy Library.
first time, by upstart rivals. Money poured into the indus- Galambos, L., & Abrahamson, E. J. (2002). Anytime, anywhere: Entre-
preneurship and the creation of a wireless world. Cambridge, UK:
try, leading to a stock-market bubble and a serious over-
Cambridge University Press.
supply of bandwidth and communications channels, Headrick, D. R. (1991). The invisible weapon: Telecommunications and
followed in 2000 by a recession and many bankruptcies. international politics, 1851–1945. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Expansions and contractions are, however, a normal Holzmann, G. J., & Pehrson, B. (1994). The early history of data net-
aspect of business expansion in a free-market economy, works. Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society Press.
Hugill, P. J. (1999). Global communications since 1844: Geopolitics and
one that will benefit consumers in the long run.
technology. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Developing countries, meanwhile, are finding it diffi- Lebow, I. (1995). Information highways and byways: From the telegraph
cult to keep up.While the unit cost of telephone calls are to the 21st century. New York: IEEE Press.
Lubar, S. (1993). Infoculture: The Smithsonian book of information age
low, the initial investment is enormous, and the technical inventions. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
expertise required to install and maintain computer net- Pool, I. D. (1990). Technologies without boundaries: On telecommunica-
tions in a global age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
works and cell-phone systems is beyond the reach of all
Standage, T. (1998). The Victorian Internet: The remarkable story of the
but a handful of developing countries. The ones with telegraph and the nineteenth century’s on-line pioneers. New York:
large populations and economies, like China, India, and Berkley Books.
Brazil, are keeping up by providing advanced services to
certain favored regions and social classes; others are
falling behind.Thus, the telecommunications revolution
is putting many developing nations at a more serious dis- Textiles
advantage than they were already.
If the recent past is a guide, we can expect as many sur- rehistoric people all over the world twisted fibers
prises in the twenty-first century as in the twentieth.Tele- Pfrom animals or plants into cordage to bind objects
phone and Internet service will continue to penetrate, together, knot fishnets, sew skins, and string beads. In
however unevenly, into the remotest areas of the world; many different locations, they looped or interlaced the
someday, perhaps, everyone will be connected to every- cordage into fabrics for both utilitarian and decorative
one else.The quality of telecommunications is also likely purposes. They incorporated designs within the fabric
to change, perhaps with the introduction of video on construction or decorated the surface with embroidery or
demand anywhere at any time.Those technological mar- pigments.When worn, these fabrics provided protection
vels, however, are no more likely than the technological from foul weather, insects, and perhaps evil spirits. Cloth
revolutions of the past to bring about world peace or alle- also offered wearers many possibilities to express identity
viate poverty. and individuality.
Archaeology and linguistics provide evidence of early
Daniel R. Headrick
textile production. Early spinners in many locations
See also Communications - Overview developed techniques to make cordage or yarns by twist-
ing animal hair or bundles of fibers from plant stems and
leaves. They invented the spindle, a shaped stick with a
Further Reading weight at the larger end, to twist the fibers uniformly and
Aitken, H. G. J. (1985). The continuous wave: Technology and American store the spun yarn. Archaeologists seldom find spindle
radio, 1900–1932. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Aitken, H. G. J. (1985). Syntony and spark: The origins of radio. Prince- sticks, but often clay or stone weights have survived.
ton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Spinners in many countries still hand-spin yarns with a