TY - JOUR
AU - Heyer, Paul
AB - Despite the importance of Marconi as a precursor to our information age, a contention well argued in this book, it is surprising how little has been written about his legacy over the past half century. This neglect is more than offset by Marc Raboy’s exhaustive and detailed study which effectively combines biographical narrative with communication history. Two fortuitous events in Marconi’s life might have led to a somewhat different account—a narrow escape and a timely death. As daughter Degna notes in her memoir, the family was supposed to sail on the Titanic in 1912. As departure time neared Marconi opted for the Lusitania—a faster ship—to engage in some corporate raiding (of United Wireless) in New York; and when baby Guilio came down with a fever the rest of the family were spared the fateful voyage and sadly waved to the ship as it passed their summer home near Southampton.1 Had Marconi opted to travel on the doomed liner he probably would have perished, but his legacy to that point would have still been enormous and thus comprises approximately half the book. Had he survived, when several self-sacrificing notables did not, a taint might have clouded the rest of his career. A more positive connection to the ship emerged in the aftermath of the sinking. His wireless drew wide attention, He was deemed a hero, the apparatus having facilitated the rescue of 700 of the 2,200 on board—a view represented in a widely circulated news cartoon. Improved regulation might have yielded a better use of the medium and the book provides coverage of later debates and legislation. This was perhaps the defining public moment of Marconi’s career, although Raboy opts for the first transatlantic message in 1901. If someone’s death can be seen as fortuitous, at least to their future reputation, a case could be made for Marconi’s demise in 1937 after a series of heart attacks. Although lauded around the world, at the time, he was a member of the fascist party, an outspoken (but perhaps not an in-spoken) supporter of Mussolini, and involved in Italy’s near genocidal colonial war in Ethiopia. Decades later questions would arise, yet had he survived into World War II, what would have been his fate? To be strung up by the partisans as was Il Duce? Probably not, but his legacy would certainly have become skewed. One of the most impressive things about Raboy’s work is the insight he provides into the last decade of Marconi’s life in which he became progressively estranged from the London-based company he founded and was drawn into a fascist vortex that dangled before his homeland the carrot of respect and power. And despite a widely held assumption, we learn unequivocally that Mussolini was not the best man at Marconi’s second wedding—he wasn’t even there, although he did send a congratulatory telegram. Following coverage of the personages and places in the Marconi family genealogy, the book covers his rise from a precocious 22-year-old in 1895, successfully establishing Morse code transmission without the use of wires to the launching of a Maritime shipping empire that would, after 1901, morph into a global communications network synonymous with his name. He was more inventor than scientist (as were Morse, Bell, and Edison, to whom he was often compared), although in 1909 he did share the Nobel Prize for physics—which Raboy rightly argues should have been his alone. Full credit is given to Marconi’s genius in thinking outside the box—or in this case, the laboratory—in response to those who have argued he was merely a clever synthesizer building on the work of others, such as Heinrich Hertz, who had explored the phenomenon of electromagnet waves. Marconi’s later struggles would be legion: with the cable companies whose service he undercut with cheaper Marconigrams; later patent litigation with its wearying court appearances; and disagreements with the board of his company. Comparisons with the hi-tech wars of today are occasionally used to show connections between then and now, plus ça change. Despite the book’s convincing case for Marconi as a unique visionary he was not always as prescient as he might have been. Voice transmission was first achieved by the Canadian Reginald Fessenden in 1906, and in 1910 that roguish inventor entrepreneur and claimant to all things radio, Lee de Forest broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. However, bad investments and big egos would eventually lead to their marginalization. By the late 1920s Marconi did manage to gain a significant presence in radio broadcasting whereas only a few years earlier he is reputed to have said something like, if people want music in the home, they can listen to phonograph records; if they want news they can purchase a newspaper (his wireless greatly aided news gathering, a topic to which the book only gives brief coverage). Although Marconi’s earlier experiments used short waves, long waves seemed at the time more reliable—he was more interested then in what electromagnetic waves could do than in theories about their in inherent properties By the 1920s however, the ease at which short waves using low power could span the globe significantly extended the reach of his network. Amateurs for whom he held little interest, had been exploiting this following the Radio Act of 1912. This confined them to using a part of the spectrum with perceived limited potential. Raboy’s argument for Marconi’s prescience does get a boost with his examination of the inventor’s exploration of the possibility of microwaves. There is an intriguing connection here with what nay-sayers said about his early successes, that yes, wireless worked, but would be limited to line of sight transmission. Marconi intuitively felt otherwise, that electromagnetic waves could travel over and around objects rather than be limited by the curvature of the Earth, not seeming to realize that at higher frequencies they do behave like light. By the 1930s he knew more, and thought that this seeming disadvantage might have a variety of potential applications (hello cell phones?). As head of the Italian Research Council, he was in a position to pursue such applications, but funding was not forthcoming; his appointment was more a prestige feather in Mussolini’s cap than a serious part of the regime’s research agenda. Raboy has given us an insightfully interpretive, as well as an impressively researched, biography. The last section draws from sources long overlooked that illuminate Italy in the 1920s and 1930s in a way that should be of general historical interest. To quibble a bit, I would like to have seen something on the day-to-day operation and design of wireless facilities that Marconi planted around the world; also, less specialized readers might have appreciated a glossary to explain some of the technical terms. Finally, the author might consider not letting his research remain “entombed” in such a massive work. Its importance begs for a small popular version for an educated lay and student readership, perhaps even a TV documentary—PBS are you listening? Note 1 Similarly, the great American writer and novelist, Theodore Dreiser, was supposed to return from Europe on the Titanic, but was urged by a friend to select more modest transportation. © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Communication Association. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/about_us/legal/notices)
TI - Marconi: The man who networked the world
JF - Journal of Communication
DO - 10.1093/joc/jqy005
DA - 2018-04-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/marconi-the-man-who-networked-the-world-S1C2PqaqPy
SP - E1
EP - E3
VL - 68
IS - 2
DP - DeepDyve
ER -