How not to network a nation

the uneasy history of the Soviet internet

by
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Benjamin Peters: How not to network a nation (2016, MIT Press)

298 pages

English language

Published July 2, 2016 by MIT Press.

ISBN:
978-0-262-03418-0
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OCLC Number:
927438758

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3 stars (1 review)

"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."--Publisher description.

1 edition

reviewed How not to network a nation by Benjamin Peters (Information policy)

Review of 'How not to network a nation' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

This book is a good account of the failure of the Soviet Union to implement its own version of the Internet. Whilst it provides an invaluable set of information about each initiative and the reasons of its demise, the theoretical framework upon which the analysis is based relies too much on the "homo economicus", selfish individual, with sprinkles of Anthony Downs and Hannah Arendt. It is nevertheless a work worth reading.

Subjects

  • Computer networks
  • History
  • Internetworking (Telecommunication)
  • Research

Places

  • Soviet Union