December’s featured title is Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunicaitons,  by Richard R. John. This story goes all the way back to the late 1700′s when the French were experimenting with optical telegraphy for government communications.  The book ends with the breakup of the Bell Corporation, leading to the thriving world of telecommunications that we see today. Library Journal writes: “To understand the history of American telecommunications is to attend to the political economies at the time technological innovation occurred. John (Professor at the School of Journalism, Columbia University) brilliantly articulates this context. Shifting municipal and federal sensibilities always shaped the diffusion of technologies, even in times where strong federal governmental oversight did not yet exist.” You can find much more about this title in Google Books (including a generous preview) at http://books.google.com/books?id=PzQRrlrySPIC&dq=network+nation&source=gbs_navlinks_s .  To see the other 91 titles this month, go to libftp.nyls.edu/Mendiknew%20Archive/december2011.pdf.