Speaking into the air : a history of the idea of communication / John Durham Peters

"In contemporary debates, communication is variously invoked as a panacea for the problems of both democracy and love, as a dream of a new information society brought about by new technologies, and as a wistful ideal of human relations. How, and why, did communication come to shoulder the load it currently carries? Speaking into the Air, a broad history of communication, illuminates our expectations of it as both historically specific and a fundamental knot in Western thought."--BOOK JACKET. "In John Durham Peters's work, the teachings of Socrates and Jesus, the theology of Saint Augustine, philosophy in the wake of Hegel, and the American tradition from Emerson through William James all become relevant for understanding communication in our age."--BOOK JACKET.