[Commlist] new book: History of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

*History of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). 
Transnational techno-diplomacy from the telegraph to the Internet*

Edited by Gabriele Balbi and Andreas Fickers

This book focuses on the history of the International Telecommunication 
Union (ITU), from its origins in the mid-19th century to nowadays. ITU 
was the first international organization ever and still plays a crucial 
role in managing global telecommunications today. Putting together some 
of the most relevant scholars in the field of transnational 
communications, the book covers the history of ITU from 1865 to digital 
times in a truly global perspective, taking into account several 
technologies like the telegraph, the telephone, cables, wireless, radio, 
television, satellites, mobile phone, the internet and others. The main 
goal is to identify the long-term strategies of regulation and the 
techno-diplomatic manoeuvres taken inside ITU, from convincing the 
majority of the nations to establish the official seat of the Telegraph 
Union bureau in Switzerland in the 1860s, to contrasting the 
multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance (supported by US and ICANN).

“History of the International Telecommunication Union” is a 
trans-disciplinary text and can be interesting for scholars and students 
in the fields of telecommunications, media, international organizations, 
transnational communication, diplomacy, political economy of 
communication, STS, and others. It has the ambition to become a 
reference point in the history of ITU and, at the same time, just the 
first comprehensive step towards a longer, inter-technological, 
political and cultural history of transnational communications to be 
written in the future.

Table of contents

Gabriele Balbi and Andreas Fickers, Introduction: The ITU as Actor, 
Arena, and Antenna of Techno-Diplomacy

Part I ITU as a Global Actor in the History of Telecommunications

1.Marsha Siefert, The Russian Empire and the International Telegraph 
Union, 1856–1875

2.Andrea Giuntini, ITU, Submarine Cables and African Colonies, 1850s–1900s

3.Richard R. John, When Techno-Diplomacy Failed: Walter S. Rogers, the 
Universal Electrical Communications Union, and the Limitations of the 
International Telegraph Union as a Global Actor in the 1920s

4.Christiane Berth, ITU, the Development Debate, and Technical 
Cooperation in the Global South, 1950–1992

5.Gianluigi Negro, The Rising Role of China in the Promotion of 
Multilateral Internet Governance, 1994–2014

6.Dwayne Winseck, Is the International Telecommunication Union Still 
Relevant in “the Internet Age?” Lessons From the 2012 World Conference 
on International Telecommunications (WCIT)

Part II ITU as an Arena of Techno-Diplomatic Negotiations for Emerging 
Technologies

7.Simone Fari, Telegraphic Diplomacy From the Origins to the Formative 
Years of the ITU, 1849–1875

8.Maria Rikitianskaia, The International Radiotelegraph Union Over the 
Course of World War I, 1912–1927

9.Christian Henrich-Franke and Léonard Laborie, Technology Taking Over 
Diplomacy? The ‘Comité Consultatif International (for) Fernschreiben’ 
(CCIF) and Its Relationship to the ITU in the Early History of Telephone 
Standardization, 1923– 1947

10.Heidi Tworek, A Union of Nations or Administrations? Voting Rights, 
Representation, and Sovereignty at the International Telecommunication 
Union in the 1930s

11.Anne-Katrin Weber, Roxane Gray, Marie Sandoz, with the collaboration 
of Adrian Stecher, ITU Exhibitions in Switzerland: Displaying the “Big 
Family of Telecommunications,” 1960s–1970s

12.Nina Wormbs and Lisa Ruth Rand, Techno-Diplomacy of the Planetary 
Periphery, 1960s–1970s

13.Valérie Schafer, The ITU Facing the Emergence of the Internet, 
1960s–Early 2000s

For more information: https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/567062.

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