Telecommunication has undergone unprecedented change in recent times. Two hundred years ago, Sir Francis Ronalds foresaw its development and imagined a world of 'electrical conversations'. His subsequent creations, the most important of which include an early version of the telegraph, have had significant impact on modern living. Little recognized until now, his extraordinary legacy is brought to life through never-before published sources written by people close to the man himself.In this book, details of Sir Francis's inventions — covering areas as diverse as electrical devices, weather forecasting, photography, art, mass production, and even fishing — are interwoven with personal and professional tales of achievement. Fresh light is shone on controversies and precedence in several important discoveries. Using both anecdotal and scientific evidence, it is written for those interested in the pursuit of science in the 19th century and the fascinating developments which have proved essential to the technological revolution of the 21st century.

Engines of Influence is a fifty-year history of Victoria's country newspapers, beginning with James Harrison's Geelong Advertiser in 1840 and ending in December 1890 when 166 papers were being published in 122 country towns. This significant book identifies all press sites and newspapers of the era, whether long-lasting or short-lived, and highlights the major part played by them in helping construct the machinery of government, lay the foundations of party politics and foster a sense of rural Victorian identity. The country press was an important agent of political change leading up to events such as the separation of the Port Phillip District from New South Wales in 1851, and the federation of the colony of Victoria with other British dependencies into a single nation at the end of the nineteenth century. Engines of Influence shows how country newspapers also exercised cultural authority, circulating ideas generated both within local communities and from the wider world. Towards the end of the fifty years examined, this rural press was becoming a close part of a unified political state, linked through the metropolitan press and agencies to a technologically-based global communications network.

This book is a study of the print cultures of the four principal Celtic languages — Irish, Welsh, Gaelic and Breton — in the crucial period between 1700 and 1900. Over the past four centuries, the Celtic languages of northwest Europe have followed contrasting paths of maintenance and decline. This was despite their common lack of official recognition and use, and their common distance from the centres of political power. This volume analyses publishing, circulation and reading in the four languages, particularly at a popular level, showing the different levels of overall activity as well as the distinctions in the types of printed texts between regions. The approach is a broad one, considering all printed books down to very small cheap formats. It explores the interactions between the different regions and the continuation of print culture within diasporic communities. This volume will appeal to book historians, to scholars of the four languages and their literature, and to students of Celtic studies.