Communicating Europe: Technologies, Information, Events (Making Europe: Technology and Transformations, 1850-2000)

Large-format paperback, xxiv + 485 pages, NOT ex-library. Weight over 1kg. Book is clean and bright with unmarked text, free of inscriptions and stamps, firmly bound. Gentle handling wear only. -- Modern history is often told through a sequence of political treaties and national triumphs, focusing on what happened within the borders of countries like Britain, France, or Germany. This approach, however, leaves a significant gap in our understanding of how a continent divided by languages, world wars, and the Iron Curtain ever managed to function as a single, connected space. While politicians argued in Brussels, a parallel and much quieter integration was happening through the physical wiring of the landscape. The book addresses this missing chapter by shifting the focus from the diplomats to the engineers. Andreas Fickers and Pascal Griset argue that the true foundation of European unity was not found in speeches, but in the cables, radio frequencies, and satellite orbits that forced rival nations to cooperate. They explore the "hidden" history of techno-diplomacy, where the simple act of making a telephone call from London to Paris or synchronising a television broadcast across borders became a hard-won victory for continental stability. The book moves beyond the domestic stories of national broadcasters to examine the "in-between" spaces - the undersea infrastructure and international postal unions that belong to no single nation but connect them all. By documenting the technical orchestration of events like the Eurovision Song Contest or the first satellite images, the authors reveal a Europe built on logistics rather than just politics. This media archaeology of the invisible systems that turned a multi-country continent into a shared reality is at the core of the book.…