A history of the key technologies that made each stage of human civilization possible details the science, engineering, mathematics, art, music, philosophy, facts and figures required for even the most clueless time traveler to build a civilization.

"Challenging the conventional wisdom -- the assumption that government (politics rather than economics) developed satellite communications because industry could not -- is the purpose of this book. That part of the story told here is of the invention of two kinds of communications satellites by AT&T and Hughes Aircraft Company, followed by government intervention to control that technology for political purposes. The primary rationale for government...