From bridges and streets to data networks: Why everything has to flow in the modern age
They are the lifelines of our civilisation: Data highways, power supply, canals and satellites. Elegantly and full of anecdotes, historian Dirk van Laak gives an extensive overview of how these networks, known as infrastructure, have changed the world and our daily lives over the last 200 years. Without them neither modern households, television, nor the Internet, colonisation or globalisation would have been possible. Water, cargo or traffic – everything must flow, otherwise it all grinds to a halt. Dirk van Laak not only shows how central these structures that often lie below our perception threshold are, but also how important it is for the future to develop concepts that keep them in flux.
