How Not to Network a Nation

How Not to Network a Nation
Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
Total Pages : 313
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780262034180
ISBN-13 : 0262034182
Rating : 4/5 (80 Downloads)

Synopsis How Not to Network a Nation by : Benjamin Peters

How, despite thirty years of effort, Soviet attempts to build a national computer network were undone by socialists who seemed to behave like capitalists. Between 1959 and 1989, Soviet scientists and officials made numerous attempts to network their nation—to construct a nationwide computer network. None of these attempts succeeded, and the enterprise had been abandoned by the time the Soviet Union fell apart. Meanwhile, ARPANET, the American precursor to the Internet, went online in 1969. Why did the Soviet network, with top-level scientists and patriotic incentives, fail while the American network succeeded? In How Not to Network a Nation, Benjamin Peters reverses the usual cold war dualities and argues that the American ARPANET took shape thanks to well-managed state subsidies and collaborative research environments and the Soviet network projects stumbled because of unregulated competition among self-interested institutions, bureaucrats, and others. The capitalists behaved like socialists while the socialists behaved like capitalists. After examining the midcentury rise of cybernetics, the science of self-governing systems, and the emergence in the Soviet Union of economic cybernetics, Peters complicates this uneasy role reversal while chronicling the various Soviet attempts to build a “unified information network.” Drawing on previously unknown archival and historical materials, he focuses on the final, and most ambitious of these projects, the All-State Automated System of Management (OGAS), and its principal promoter, Viktor M. Glushkov. Peters describes the rise and fall of OGAS—its theoretical and practical reach, its vision of a national economy managed by network, the bureaucratic obstacles it encountered, and the institutional stalemate that killed it. Finally, he considers the implications of the Soviet experience for today's networked world.

Encyclopaedia Britannica

Encyclopaedia Britannica
Author :
Publisher :
Total Pages : 1090
Release :
ISBN-10 : HARVARD:FL2VGS
ISBN-13 :
Rating : 4/5 (GS Downloads)

Synopsis Encyclopaedia Britannica by : Hugh Chisholm

This eleventh edition was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time and it is considered to be a landmark encyclopaedia for scholarship and literary style.

Dismantling Utopia

Dismantling Utopia
Author :
Publisher :
Total Pages : 324
Release :
ISBN-10 : OCLC:263615859
ISBN-13 :
Rating : 4/5 (59 Downloads)

Synopsis Dismantling Utopia by : Scott Shane

An Economic History of the U.S.S.R.

An Economic History of the U.S.S.R.
Author :
Publisher : IICA
Total Pages : 420
Release :
ISBN-10 :
ISBN-13 :
Rating : 4/5 ( Downloads)

Synopsis An Economic History of the U.S.S.R. by : Alec Nove

Study in historical perspective of developments in economic policy in the USSR - covers economic structures and economic administration prior to and during the 1st world war, the position during the 50 years of the communist regime, political leadership of the country, the collective economy, industrialization, political problems, economic growth, etc. Bibliography pp. 389 to 391, and statistical tables.

USSR Information Bulletin

USSR Information Bulletin
Author :
Publisher :
Total Pages : 888
Release :
ISBN-10 : MINN:31951002805964Q
ISBN-13 :
Rating : 4/5 (4Q Downloads)

Synopsis USSR Information Bulletin by :

Revelations from the Russian Archives

Revelations from the Russian Archives
Author :
Publisher :
Total Pages : 836
Release :
ISBN-10 : 1780393806
ISBN-13 : 9781780393803
Rating : 4/5 (06 Downloads)

Synopsis Revelations from the Russian Archives by : Diane P. Koenker

The Soviet Union: A Very Short Introduction

The Soviet Union: A Very Short Introduction
Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages : 169
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780199238484
ISBN-13 : 0199238480
Rating : 4/5 (84 Downloads)

Synopsis The Soviet Union: A Very Short Introduction by : Stephen Lovell

Taking a fresh approach to the study of the Soviet Union, this Very Short Introduction blends political history with an investigation into Soviet society and culture from 1917 to 1991. Stephen Lovell examines aspects of patriotism, political violence, poverty, and ideology, and provides answers to some of the big questions about the Soviet experience. Throughout, the book takes a refreshing thematic approach to the Soviet Union and provides an up-to-date consideration of the Soviet Union's impact and what we have learnt since its end.

The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy

The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy
Author :
Publisher : UNC Press Books
Total Pages : 262
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781469630182
ISBN-13 : 1469630184
Rating : 4/5 (82 Downloads)

Synopsis The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy by : Chris Miller

For half a century the Soviet economy was inefficient but stable. In the late 1980s, to the surprise of nearly everyone, it suddenly collapsed. Why did this happen? And what role did Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's economic reforms play in the country's dissolution? In this groundbreaking study, Chris Miller shows that Gorbachev and his allies tried to learn from the great success story of transitions from socialism to capitalism, Deng Xiaoping's China. Why, then, were efforts to revitalize Soviet socialism so much less successful than in China? Making use of never-before-studied documents from the Soviet politburo and other archives, Miller argues that the difference between the Soviet Union and China--and the ultimate cause of the Soviet collapse--was not economics but politics. The Soviet government was divided by bitter conflict, and Gorbachev, the ostensible Soviet autocrat, was unable to outmaneuver the interest groups that were threatened by his economic reforms. Miller's analysis settles long-standing debates about the politics and economics of perestroika, transforming our understanding of the causes of the Soviet Union's rapid demise.

The Development of Capitalism in Russia

The Development of Capitalism in Russia
Author :
Publisher :
Total Pages : 0
Release :
ISBN-10 : 1410213005
ISBN-13 : 9781410213006
Rating : 4/5 (05 Downloads)

Synopsis The Development of Capitalism in Russia by : Vladimir I. Lenin

CONTENTS The Development of Capitalism in Russia The Theoretical Mistakes of the Narodnik Economists The Differentiation of the Peasantry The Landowners' Transition from Corvée to Capitalist Economy The Growth of Commercial Agriculture The First Stages of Capitalism in Industry Capitalist Manufacture and Capitalist Domestic Industry The Development of Large-Scale Machine Industry The Formation of the Home Market

A Brief History of Radio Astronomy in the USSR

A Brief History of Radio Astronomy in the USSR
Author :
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages : 265
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9789400728332
ISBN-13 : 9400728336
Rating : 4/5 (32 Downloads)

Synopsis A Brief History of Radio Astronomy in the USSR by : S. Y. Braude

This translation of A Brief History of Radio Astronomy in the USSR makes descriptions of the antennas and instrumentation used in the USSR, the astronomical discoveries, as well as interesting personal backgrounds of many of the early key players in Soviet radio astronomy available in the English language for the first time. This book is a collection of memoirs recounting an interesting but largely still dark era of Soviet astronomy. The arrangement of the essays is determined primarily by the time when radio astronomy studies began at the institutions involved. These include the Lebedev Physical Institute (FIAN), Gorkii State University and the affiliated Physical-Technical Institute (GIFTI), Moscow State University Sternberg Astronomical institute (GAISH) and Space Research Institute (IKI), the Department of Radio Astronomy of the Main Astronomical Observatory in Pulkovo (GAO), Special Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (BAO), Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, Academy of Sciences of the Ukraine (SSR), Institute of Radio Physics and Electronics of the USSR Academy of Sciences (IRE), Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, the Ionosphere and Radio-Wave Propagation Institute (IZMIRAN), Siberian Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, the Ionosphere and Radio-Wave Propagation (SibIZMIRAN), the Radio Astrophysical Observatory of the Latvian Academy of Sciences and Leningrad State University. A Brief History of Radio Astronomy in the USSR is a fascinating source of information on a past era of scientific culture and fields of research including the Soviet SETI activities. Anyone interested in the recent history of science will enjoy reading this volume.