[Infrastructure-readinggroup] short follow-up

[Niels ten Oever]

Hi all,

I was reading through the infrastructure book by Dirk van Laat [0] and was reading about the lifecycle of infrastructures, here roads and bridges are mentioned as well as the near permanent maintenance deficit they are under in the US and Germany. I was wondering: to what extend is this similar to the investment of Great Britain in the telegraph, discussed yesterday in 'Telegraphic Imperialism'? In other words, can a main characteristic of imperial overstretch be defined as the inability to maintain or renew existing infrastructures that play a key role in society?

Am also still looking through the books below (x2) as well as some new ones for our future planning - please do let me know if you have books or topics to suggest for joint reading! For instance, if you all would like to read more about submarine cables, colonialism, historical infrastructures, modern infrastructures, quantum, telecommunications, China, Russia, Latin America, etc, that is all excellent - please do let us know :)

The tentacles of progress : technology transfer in the age of imperialism, 1850-1940 / Daniel R. Headrick.

Lightning wires : the telegraph and China's technological modernization, 1860-1890 / Erik Baark

Power over peoples : technology, environments, and western imperialism, 1400 to the present / Daniel R. Headrick

Technology: a world history Daniel R. Headrick

Best,

Niels

[0] Van Laak, Dirk. 2023. Lifelines of Our Society: A Global History of Infrastructure. MIT Press.

> 
> Dalrymple, William. 2019. The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company. Bloomsbury Publishing.
> 
> Deudney, Daniel. 2020. Dark Skies: Space Expansionism, Planetary Geopolitics, and the Ends of Humanity. Oxford University Press, USA.
> 
> Knox, Hannah, and Penny Harvey. 2015. Roads: An Anthropology of Infrastructure and Expertise. Cornell University Press. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/57674/.
> 
> Long, Pamela O. 2019. Engineering the Eternal City: Infrastructure, Topography, and the Culture of Knowledge in Late Sixteenth-Century Rome. University of Chicago Press. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7208/9780226591315/html.
> 
> Swenson, Edward. 2024. Infrastructures of Religion and Power: Archaeologies of Landscape, Ritual, and Semiotics. Taylor & Francis.
> 
> Van Laak, Dirk. 2023. Lifelines of Our Society: A Global History of Infrastructure. MIT Press.
> 
> This might be a bit too Europe focused for us, but the series approach looks really great:
> 
> Diogo, Maria Paula, and Dirk van Laak. 2016. Europeans Globalizing: Mapping, Exploiting, Exchanging. Making Europe : Technology and Transformations, 1850-2000. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
> 
> Fickers, Andreas, and Pascal Griset. 2019. Communicating Europe: Technologies, Information, Events. Making Europe : Technology and Transformations, 1850-2000. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
> 
> Högselius, Per, and Erik van der Vleuten. 2016. Europe’s Infrastructure Transition: Economy, War, Nature. Making Europe : Technology and Transformations, 1850-2000. Houndmills, Basingstoke Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. https://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1613/2015001279-t.html.
> 
> Kaiser, Wolfram, and J. W. Schot. 2014. Writing the Rules for Europe: Experts, Cartels, and International Organizations. Making Europe : Technology and Transformations, 1850-2000. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
> Trischler, Helmuth, and Martin Kohlrausch. 2014. Building Europe on Expertise: Innovators, Organizers, Networkers. Making Europe : Technology and Transformations, 1850-2000. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=43809.
> 

-- 
Niels ten Oever, PhD
Co-Principal Investigator - critical infrastructure lab - University of Amsterdam
Assistant Professor - Department of European Studies - University of Amsterdam

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W: https://nielstenoever.net
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