Preview
  • How Not to Network a Nation

  • The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet (Information Policy)
  • By: Benjamin Peters
  • Narrated by: Dana Hickox
  • Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
  • 3.3 out of 5 stars (13 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

How Not to Network a Nation

By: Benjamin Peters
Narrated by: Dana Hickox
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $25.78

Buy for $25.78

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

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.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2016 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (P)2016 Gildan Media LLC
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

What listeners say about How Not to Network a Nation

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    2
Performance
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    2

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Good Subject, too repetitive

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

No, the exposition was circular, with many points repeated several times. It was more of a Sociology paper than a book designed to engage the reader.

Was How Not to Network a Nation worth the listening time?

Barely

Any additional comments?

The performer has a good voice, but the performance was riddled with mispronuncations.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Good story, dry narrator.

It was an interesting story, the only problem I have with it was the narrator. The narrator was dry and monotone I almost thought it he was an A.I.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!