Mapping World Communication: War, Progress, Culture

The major theme of this book is obvious. It is that aggression in pursuit of wealth for a minority class has driven global expansion and globalization, and that two co-dependent strategic means have been used to achieve the goals of world conquest and universalization; world-scale militaries and their projection of power combined with, communication networking (which often promotes the elimination of local cultures and languages in favor of a monoculture and colonial language). Propaganda for a single consumer lifestyle has moved forward from capitalist centers under the power and protection of military might to vastly change the face of, what was once only a couple of centuries ago, a tremendous diversity of cultures and ways of living on the planet (over 1000 languages, religions, and lifestyles in North America alone). Anyone who reads this book will find a rigorous history of colonial expansion and how communication technologies and communication networking helped enable it, leading to total globalization of a single consumer culture. Mattelart looks at space and time, the railroad, missionaries, telegraph, radio, television and the like, and how these structures have been as instrumental as gunpowder and TNT in conquering the world. Mattelart also challenges the early Pollyannaish dictum that we are generating a "global village," by suggesting that what is emerging is instead more akin to a "global city," a vastly different milieu characterized mostly by social Darwinism, relentless competition and conflict, and alienation. This book suggests an answer to why there is a rising tide of frustration (blowback) on the planet as commercial messages have raised unrealistic expectations among a mass of poor and increasingly younger human beings. Mattelart's book expresses a common critical perspective that has currency throughout the world, though less in the US; a perspective important to be exposed to, be aware of, and to consider. As a translation it is of mediocre success. The book requires close reading and study. It is neither a predigested textbook nor beach reading. To come to it expecting it to read itself is an unfair expectation. A single, quick read will not do it justice. It also helps to cross-reference historical claims made in the book to expand on its themes and check its accuracy. Mattelart's implied reader is at least a well-informed person with some previous understanding of the history of colonialism and postcolonial conditions that would enable Mattelart's thesis to be properly adjudicated. The main theme: that communication is a vital, though often overlooked component in the race to reduce the world to a single market, kept safe by massive military expenditures; less for democracy than for Wall Street, and other financial centers around the world. Mattelart sees colonial powers such as France, England and the USA as pseudo-democracies, more accurately as republics with massive military projection into all reache