"An image of history as something other than a progressive chain of events informs this book. It is my contention that the received understanding of our current technological situation, the view that we are living in the midst of an ‘Information Revolution’ or at the start of an ‘Information Age’, can be seen rather differently if the histories of the technologies involved are considered. I am not necessarily suggesting, with Walter Benjamin and Paul Klee, that if we take their view we will agree that we are drowning in an ever-growing pile of debris; but I am agreeing with them that, certainly, the storm of progress blows so hard as to obscure our vision of what is actually happening. What is hyperbolised as a revolutionary train of events can be seen as a far more evolutionary and less transforming process. The suggestion that we are not in the midst of monumental and increasingly frequent change in information (or better, communications) technology runs so..."