This is a brilliant effort, and easily the best work on telecommunications history in a politico-economic context that I have read. Headrick does the hard work, provides the detail, and then makes genuinely insightful comments to educate the reader as to the meaning of various events. It is rare to read such a well researched, straight forward book, and it is even easy to read. A complete success.

Daniel Headrick has written an essential resource by those working such issues as communications, national security, intelligence, and history. "The Invisible Weapon" describes the development of telecommunications from 1851 to 1945. Mr. Headrick shows how the new technology permitted the expansion of Britain's empire, and London's international influence.

Each section of the book brings to light the enormous impact the new telegraphic system had on world events. Mr. Headrick describes how Britain was able to secure near monopoly on important telegraphic technology, how London used its submarine cables to link the Empire, and how it controlled information to weaken its enemies. One cannot help but be captured by the amazing parallels to today's communications developments. Indeed, "The Invisible Weapon" has been noted on the bookshelves of experts in information warfare

The book contains clear and concise maps, excellent tables and figures,! and thorough footnotes. Each chapter contains an excellent conclusions section. The only flaw noted by this reviewer is the jacket design, so dull and grey that it likely hindered sales. Nevertheless, "The Invisible Weapon" will no doubt find a prominent place on bookshelves for decades to come.

I am a sophomore in highschool taking an AP class with this book. It has a lot of information, which I guess is a good thing if you are reading this for your own personal gain rather than being tested on it. However, it is so dense that it is difficult to pick up key ideas. Every piece of information is important on some level, and the tests I take, which my teacher got along with this book, also treat every fact as important. I wouldn't mind reading this book if I wasn't expected to have a photographic memory but it just doesn't do a good job of helping me understand key ideas in history. Well, if you have to read this in your history class I hope you have a good teacher to guide you along in the reading. Otherwise.... I hope your memory is better than mine!!

Excellent book for senior high school-college-undergraduate studies, covering the broad field of world history. The text is structured in such a manner as to suit both brief studies of various areas and times, as well as more in depth, long term programs. A fascinating assortment of primary source excerpts have been included, from earliest human societies to issues facing humanity in the contemporary period. Though the text has a slight Western emphasis, it covers non-Western civilisations quite well.

Be prepared though for extensive reading. The complete set is very large, but shouldn't be an obstacle for those with a passion for both general and obscure history!

I bought this book because of my high opinion of two of the authors, Headrick and Crossley. The approach is extremely good, but there are great weaknesses in coverage of the histories of the United States, Russia, and China. This is a very useful reference work on modern history, and there are many absorbing chapters. But it can't be used without additional reading --add Geoffrey Freeze on Russia, Immanuel Hsu on modern China, and Edmund Morgan on the U.S.

A very dry book that is written in an easy to read style. That's great, but it is so relaxing that it can put you to sleep within a few pages. Granted, he had a tough topic to create excitement out of, but this reads like one of those textbooks that you dreaded receiving the first day of classes.
He talks about the motivation of European imperialism. He should have remembered to motivate the reader to care.

I think he pays attention to the wrong things. I agree with much of what he says about technology and imperialism, but he seems to ignore the fact that motivations are often what drives technology rather than the other way around.

Mr Headrick, let's face it: since the advent of capitalism, people have always wanted to get rich. What we are talking about in the 18th and 19th centuries is not so much a technological imperialism or even the interaction between humans and their new discoveries, but rather the dominance of greed and the motivation to get rich. Indeed, Headrick touches upon this idea of "secondary imperialism" - by which countries accept inroads made in other countries by PRIVATE COMPANIES and PRIVATE INDIVIDUALS after the fact, but he seems to brush it off. He seems instead to place an emphasis on technology that is rather unwarranted. Technology never has and never will dictate what humans want to do. Rather, it simply determines what they can accomplish. Even today, people do not clone sheep because they CAN. They do it because they WANT to. Whether or not Mr. Headrick likes it or not, some people get off on taking advantage of, subjugating and even enslaving others. It is a sad fact of life.

Headrick also makes some ridiculous conclusions in his book that could be insulting to non-Europeans. He writes that the true legacy of imperialism was that "Europeans passed on to the peoples of Asia and AFrica their own fascination with machinery and innovation." Excuse me? Has Africa and Asia really had any CHOICE in the matter? Has even the private citizen in the United States had any choice? The imperialist has won out and has been able to dictate how to live life and this is the legacy of imperialsm. Furthermore, there as a lot of interest in technology even in Africa before the invasion of Europeans.

There are several other things in this book that annoyed me. Headrick gives a simplistic account of the development of the steamboat, emphasizing the role of Fulton while completly ignoring the contributions of Fitch, Rumsey and John Stevens Jr. And he states in his conclusion that, "Today, we are accustomed to important innovations being so complex ... that only the governments of major powers can defray their research and development costs."

Again, excuse me? If anything, the power of the government has DWINDLED. In the 1930s, no one would have ever dreamed of a company developing something like the atomic bomb, but today, with the accumulation of so much wealth in the hands of private individuals in the corporate world, such things are commonplace. Again, I am reminded of cloning. That was a HUGE achievement and no United Kingdom government was involved.

I realize I have been hard on Headrick, which is not to say I did not enjoy this book. As far as history goes, he generally gets his facts right and I found some of his interpretations interesting, although controversal. Anyone interested in imperialism would probably get something out of this book.

Though the subject will not interest everyone (thus 4 1/2 stars), "Tools of Empire" is still a fine example of sound research made accessible for a student/general audience by gifted writing. Headrick shows that, even though the will to dominate existed for a long time previously, Europe's chance to conquer most of the globe only came in the second half of the 19th century.

The technological changes associated with the transition from the First to the Second Industrial Revolution helped create this opportunity. Major innovations such as modern firearms, steamships, railroads, anti-malarial quinine and the telegraph made it much safer for Europeans to live and travel in the tropics, and also easier to attack the indigenous people there. The author gives special attention to developments in India, China and Africa.

Headrick's later works lack the sparkle of this groundbreaking text, but are still worthwhile in bringing the story closer to our own time. The more recent titles have rather more coverage of technology transfer---non-Western peoples' use of introduced technologies---in contrast to "Tools of Empire's" focus on the ways they were used against them. [Michael Adas, "Machines As the Measure of Men" is a stimulating look at Europeans' moral judgements about other societies based on their relative technological proficiency.]

I thought that this book had difficult wording and was more a college-level book rather than a high school-level book. However, it covers a wide range of civilizations and concentrates on a fundamental theme to compare different times, places, and societies: the interaction of human beings and the environment. Emphasis is placed on technological development and how technology underlies all human activity. It also caught my interest because it included a unique phonetic guide to unfamiliar words.