1994 Chapters (Layout Features)

American Historians and the Concept of the Communications Revolution

John, Richard R.

For more than 50 years, it has been conventional for historians to posit that the United States experienced a 'communications revolution' at some point between the eighteenth century and the present day. It would be hardly an exaggeration to suggest that the concept has played for historians of communications a role analogous to that which the notion of the frontier has played for historians of the American West. This chapter seeks to clarify what historians of the United States have meant when they have written about the communications revolution.