The Invisible Weapon

The political history of telecommunications from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of World War II.

Daniel R. Headrick is Professor Emeritus of Social Science and History at Roosevelt University and author of numerous books on world history, including Power over Peoples: Technology, Environments, and Western Imperialism, 1400 to the Present, Technology: A World History (OUP, 2009), When Information Came of Age (OUP, 2000), The Tentacles of Progress (OUP, 1988), and The Tools of Empire (OUP, 1981).

Contents
1 Telecommunications and International Relations
Characteristics of Electrical Communications
Telecommunications and World History
International Telecommunications as a Field of Study
2 New Technology
Origins of the Telegraph
International Telegraphic Cooperation
The First Submarine Telegraph Cables
The Mediterranean Cables
The First Atlantic Cables
The Red Sea Cable
Telegraphs to India
Conclusion
3 The Expansion of the World Cable Network, 1866-1895
The Technology of Cables
The Atlantic Cables
The Cable Companies
Cables to India and Australia
Cable Rivalries in the West Indies and Latin America
Across Russia to Japan
Commercial Codes and the International Telegraph Union
Conclusion
4 Telegraphy and Imperialism in the Late Nineteenth Century
The Telegraph in India
The Telegraph in Indochina
Cables and News in the French West Indies
The Telegraph in China
The East African Cables
The West African Cables
Cables and Colonial Control
Conclusion
5 Crisis at the Turn of the Century, 1895-1901
Telegraphy and Diplomacy
British Cable Strategy to 1898
Telegraphic Delays and French Imperialism
Germany and the Azores Affair
The Spanish-American War
The Fashoda Incident
The British Strategic Cable Report of 1898
The Boer War
6 The Great Powers and the Cable Crisis, 1900-1913
The British Pacific Cable and the "All-Red" Routes
British Cable Strategy, 1902-1914
The American Cables
France and the Cable Crisis
Germany and the Cable Crisis
Conclusion
7 The Beginnings of Radio, 1895-1914
Marconi and the Birth of Wireless Telegraphy
The Marconi Monopoly and the Reaction of the Powers
Technological Change and Commercial Rivalries
The U.S. Navy and Radio to 1908
The Continuous Ware, 1908-1914
French Colonial Wireless
German Long-Distance and Colonial Radio
The British Imperial Wireless Chain
Conclusion
8 Cables and Radio in World War I
The Jitters of July 1914
Allied Attacks on German Communications
German Attacks on Allied Communications
Allied Communications during the War
Censorship
Propaganda
Conclusion
9 Communications Intelligence in World War I
Government Cryptology before 1914
Communications Intelligence on Land
British Naval Interception and Direction-Finding
German Codes and British Cryptanalysis in 1914
British Naval Intelligence, 1915-1916
The U-Boat War, 1917-1918
German Communications Intelligence
The Zimmerman Telegram
10 Conflicts and Settlements, 1919-1923
The Paris Peace Conference of 1919
The Washington Conferences of 1920-1922
The Struggle over Cables to Latin America
The Radio Corporation of America
British Radio, 1919~1924
German and French Radio to 1924
Radio in Latin America and China
Conclusion
11 Technological Upheavals and Commercial Rivalries, 1924-1939
The Distribution of Cables in the World in 1923
Cable Technology in the 1920s
The New Cables, 1924-1929
ITT and the Telephones
The British Reaction
French Colonial Shortwave
The International Impact of Shortwave
The British Communications Merger
Responses to the British Merger
The British Dilemma: Profits versus Security
Conclusion
12 Communications Intelligence in World War II
British and German Communications Intelligence to 1936
Cipher Machines
The Approach of War, 1936-1939
The Outbreak of War, 1939-1940
British Communications Intelligence in Wartime
German Communications Intelligence in Wartime
The Battles of Britain and North Africa
German Spies and Allied Radio Deception
Funkspiele, Resistance, and the Normandy Landing
The Soviet Rings
Conclusion
13 The War at Sea
The Cable War
Communications and Naval Warfare in the Atlantic
The Battle of the Atlantic, 1939-1944
American Communications Intelligence before Pearl Harbor
From Pearl Harbor to Midway
After Midway
14 The Changing of the Guard
The American Expansion
Strategic Cables to North Africa and Europe
The Retreat of Britain
The Organization of Postwar Communications
Conclusion
15 Telecommunications, Information, and Security
Bibliography Essay
Books on Submarine Telegraph Cables
Books on Radio and Telecommunications
Communications Intelligence
Primary Sources
Index