If there is a book category called “And now for something completely different,” Getting the Message undoubtedly would be so classified. Is it a coffee table book, a textbook, or a serious history? Part I gives the reader “The first thirty-six centuries,” while Part II is telegraphy (and a bit of telephony), and everything else (microwaves, digitization, fiber optics, deregulation, mobile communications, the fax, the “communications-computing symbiosis,” and more) crowd into Part III.

Laszlo Solymar, an Oxford professor of engineering, infuses the text with quirky commentary, colorful character studies, social criticism, technical explanations, and personal prejudice. Indeed, he set out to make this book simultaneously technical, polemical, historical, analytical, and readable. The narrative is brisk, and a large number of illustrations and cartoons make Solymar's points. For example, he includes a “Punch” cartoon from 1879 that shows two people who appear to be videoconferencing, and a picture of an eavesdropping device used by Alexander the Great.