Newly revised and updated, this new paperback edition of Spirit of the Web is an absorbing, dramatic, and comprehensive history of the development of communications technologies over the past 150 years.

Spirit of the Web provides a fascinating and insightful perspective on the origins of the digital revolution and the history of the Global Village we now inhabit, from vacuum tubes and telegraphs to BlackBerrys and Google IPOs.

Ranked among Canada's leading literary journalists, Wade Rowland is the author of more than a dozen non-fiction books including Ockham's Razor, Greed, Inc., and Saving the CBC. He spent many years in television news production at the network level and has held senior management roles at both CTV and CBC, where he was also senior producer of the consumer affairs program Marketplace. Rowland holds a Ph.D. in Communication and Culture and is currently Associate Professor at York University. Born in Montreal, he grew up in Regina and Winnipeg and currently lives in rural Port Hope, Ontario, with his wife Christine Collie Rowland.

Wade Rowland's profile page

Rowland constructs a spirited, stimulating and sophisticated network of stories and accounts of technological inventions and advances, their roots and consequences for humanity, and the personalities that created them.

Winnipeg Free Press

Spirit of the Web is an excellent examination, not just of the invention of these technologies, but of their economic, social and cultural impact--fascinating‚ --definitive‚--highly recommended.

The Regina Leader Post

A brilliant book. I couldn't put it down.

Norm Bolen, vice president, programming, History Television

Remarkable renaissance sweep of imagination-- looks deeply into history to find patterns. Spirit of the Web is an engaging hybrid of popular scholarship: part archive, part science textbook, part philosophy, part polemic about the nature of authority and the control of information in all ages.

The Globe and Mail