The Network

March 7, 2016
Woolley, a technology and business writer, traces the development of communications technology from the telegraph to the television to the first visions of the Internet. He frames these advances with the story of the complicated friendship between David Sarnoff, a media mongul who rose to the helm of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), and Edwin Armstrong, prolific inventor who developed, among other game-changing technologies, the first amplifier to enable telegraph signal reception from greater distances. In this short but magnetic narrative, Woolley shows how, despite their differences, the men connected through their mutual understanding of "the power and possibility of the invisible waves." Both figures were truly visionary, especially Sarnoff, who led the charge on radio broadcasting and color television and articulated a vision that prophesied the Internet. Yet for both Sarnoff and Woolley, innovation was obstructed by corporate interest, and government agencies were unwilling to intercede. This classic struggleâvisionaries with revolutionary ideas and capabilities against established interestsâdrives the book's narrative. By focusing on a handful of characters, Woolley avoids getting bogged down in excessive technological and scientific detail, legal nuances, and biographical minutiae, and instead crafts a highly readable, plot-driven narrative that illuminates the genesis of innovations that many readers take for granted.

March 15, 2016

This account tells the story of the so-called Battle for the Airwaves that took place over the course of the early to mid-20th century, from the years leading up to the development of the first modern radio transmitter to the bitter legal fight over FM radio in the 1950s that eventually contributed to the suicide of one of the industry's inventors, Edwin Armstrong. First-time author and journalist Woolley (Forbes, Slate) chooses wisely to focus the book's perspective on a small yet fascinating cast of characters, headlined by the controversial visionary and longtime RCA head David Sarnoff. A onetime friend of Armstrong's, and later his legal adversary, Sarnoff proves quickly to be the narrative's primary attraction, overshadowing the court case that otherwise purports to be the work's denouement. The result is a highly accessible and journalistic work that will fascinate general readers but may leave more serious scholars of broadcasting wishing for additional footnotes, details, and depth. VERDICT A slim but entertaining account of historical politics and profit in the age of mass communication, this work is recommended for dual fans of nonfiction writing and the business of media technology.--Robin Chin Roemer, Univ. of Washington Lib., Seattle

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2016
The past envisions the future in a short book that spans a century of revolutions in communications. This would have been a deeper book if it were a conventional biography of David Sarnoff (1891-1971), "the man who had sailed into New York Harbor as a nine year old boy and gone on to foresee every major communications advance from the wireless telegraph to satellites--and fought to bring them all to the general public." It often seems like an account of a relationship and a rift between the empire-building RCA tycoon and Edwin Armstrong (1890-1954), "the most prolific inventor since Thomas Edison," whose advances were crucial to Sarnoff's vision yet whose path diverged when he saw Sarnoff focusing on TV and perhaps impeding the progress of the FM radio advances that Armstrong championed. Woolley begins with the suicide of Armstrong, who felt betrayed by Sarnoff, and circles back to his death about two-thirds of the way through, leaving the stage to Sarnoff alone. Drawing from court transcripts, the account of the rift between the former friends has the dramatic tension and narrative propulsion of a historical novel, yet an oddly structured one once Armstrong is gone. What the author dubs "Act III" is the most revelatory, as it shows Sarnoff extending his vision from radio to TV to the computer age. In his discussion of sources, Woolley concludes, "David Sarnoff's remarkable speech predicting the rise of fiber optics and the Internet was made in 1965, but has been ignored until now." As the telegraph gave way to radio, then to TV and the Internet, the book shows how Sarnoff continued to embody the lessons he learned from Marconi in the telegraph age: "When wagering on the future of a new wireless technology, always bet on the optimists--eventually they're going to be right." Armstrong was one of those optimists, until he became a casualty. Beginning in the era of an "ever-expanding worldwide web of cables," the book is readable but could have been fleshed out more fully.

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 15, 2016
Woolley packs a lot into this slim book: the story of a friendship between a brilliant inventor and a media visionary (Edwin Armstrong, inventor of the amplifier and FM radio, and RCA chief David Sarnoff); the history of world-changing technological innovation in the first half of the twentieth century; a look at corruption in the nascent radio industry; a tale of obsession and paranoia (Armstrong took his own life after years of futile courtroom battles to protect his patents). The author's portraits of Sarnoff and Armstrong are precise and multidimensional: Sarnoff, for example, comes across as a man who was so forward seeing that he outfitted his radio studios for television transmission before there was such a thing as television transmission, but whose tunnel vision could lead him to overlook something important. This fluidly written and well-reported story (dialogue comes from documentary sources) should prove a big hit with technophiles and readers interested in the early twentieth-century communications industry. Pair the book with Tom Lewis' similar Empire of the Air (1991).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)