Joanna Guldi - Roads to Power : Britain Invents the Infrastructure State read online DOC, FB2, MOBI
9780674057593 English 0674057597 Guldi refutes the traditional tale of how better roads made better neighbors and how the transport revolution unified the English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish into a common and commercial people. In fact, Britons divided over two visions of community: one centralized, expert-driven, and technological; the other local, informal, and libertarian., In early eighteenth-century Britain, nothing but stretches of dirt track ran between most towns. Rain-soaked ruts and eroding banks rendered them impassible much of the year. By 1848 Britain's primitive roads were transformed into a network of forty-foot-wide highways connecting every village and island in the nation-and also dividing them in unforeseen ways. In Roads to Power, Joanna Guldi refutes the traditional tale of how better roads made better neighbors and how the transport revolution unified the English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish into a common and commercial people. In fact, few issues divided Britain as much as transport and trade. The highway network led to contests for control over problems ranging from road management to market access. Peripheries like the Highlands demanded that centralized government pay for roads they could not afford, while English counties argued for a localism that would spare them from underwriting roads to Scotland. The new infrastructure also transformed social relationships. When tradesmen, Methodist preachers, soldiers, and entertainers took to the highway, travelers and townspeople alike felt vulnerable, and mistrust grew. Coaches, inns, and guidebooks isolated better-off travelers from encounters with strangers, furthering class division. Bureaucratic expansion led to social as well as civil engineering, in the form of state-designed sewers and slum clearance projects. In debates between centralist and localist approaches, Britons posited two visions of community: one centralized, expert-driven, and technological, and the other local, informal, and libertarian. These two visions lie at the heart of today's debates over infrastructure, development, and communication., Roads to Power tells the story of how Britain built the first nation connected by infrastructure, how a libertarian revolution destroyed a national economy, and how technology caused strangers to stop speaking. In early eighteenth-century Britain, nothing but dirt track ran between most towns. By 1848 the primitive roads were transformed into a network of highways connecting every village and island in the nation'e"and also dividing them in unforeseen ways. The highway network led to contests for control over everything from road management to market access. Peripheries like the Highlands demanded that centralized government pay for roads they could not afford, while English counties wanted to be spared the cost of underwriting roads to Scotland. The new network also transformed social relationships. Although travelers moved along the same routes, they occupied increasingly isolated spheres. The roads were the product of a new form of government, the infrastructure state, marked by the unprecedented control bureaucrats wielded over decisions relating to everyday life. Does information really work to unite strangers? Do markets unite nations and peoples in common interests? There are lessons here for all who would end poverty or design their markets around the principle of participation. Guldi draws direct connections between traditional infrastructure and the contemporary collapse of the American Rust Belt, the decline of American infrastructure, the digital divide, and net neutrality. In the modern world, infrastructure is our principal tool for forging new communities, but it cannot outlast the control of governance by visionaries.
9780674057593 English 0674057597 Guldi refutes the traditional tale of how better roads made better neighbors and how the transport revolution unified the English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish into a common and commercial people. In fact, Britons divided over two visions of community: one centralized, expert-driven, and technological; the other local, informal, and libertarian., In early eighteenth-century Britain, nothing but stretches of dirt track ran between most towns. Rain-soaked ruts and eroding banks rendered them impassible much of the year. By 1848 Britain's primitive roads were transformed into a network of forty-foot-wide highways connecting every village and island in the nation-and also dividing them in unforeseen ways. In Roads to Power, Joanna Guldi refutes the traditional tale of how better roads made better neighbors and how the transport revolution unified the English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish into a common and commercial people. In fact, few issues divided Britain as much as transport and trade. The highway network led to contests for control over problems ranging from road management to market access. Peripheries like the Highlands demanded that centralized government pay for roads they could not afford, while English counties argued for a localism that would spare them from underwriting roads to Scotland. The new infrastructure also transformed social relationships. When tradesmen, Methodist preachers, soldiers, and entertainers took to the highway, travelers and townspeople alike felt vulnerable, and mistrust grew. Coaches, inns, and guidebooks isolated better-off travelers from encounters with strangers, furthering class division. Bureaucratic expansion led to social as well as civil engineering, in the form of state-designed sewers and slum clearance projects. In debates between centralist and localist approaches, Britons posited two visions of community: one centralized, expert-driven, and technological, and the other local, informal, and libertarian. These two visions lie at the heart of today's debates over infrastructure, development, and communication., Roads to Power tells the story of how Britain built the first nation connected by infrastructure, how a libertarian revolution destroyed a national economy, and how technology caused strangers to stop speaking. In early eighteenth-century Britain, nothing but dirt track ran between most towns. By 1848 the primitive roads were transformed into a network of highways connecting every village and island in the nation'e"and also dividing them in unforeseen ways. The highway network led to contests for control over everything from road management to market access. Peripheries like the Highlands demanded that centralized government pay for roads they could not afford, while English counties wanted to be spared the cost of underwriting roads to Scotland. The new network also transformed social relationships. Although travelers moved along the same routes, they occupied increasingly isolated spheres. The roads were the product of a new form of government, the infrastructure state, marked by the unprecedented control bureaucrats wielded over decisions relating to everyday life. Does information really work to unite strangers? Do markets unite nations and peoples in common interests? There are lessons here for all who would end poverty or design their markets around the principle of participation. Guldi draws direct connections between traditional infrastructure and the contemporary collapse of the American Rust Belt, the decline of American infrastructure, the digital divide, and net neutrality. In the modern world, infrastructure is our principal tool for forging new communities, but it cannot outlast the control of governance by visionaries.