HISTORICAL PARALLELS between the impact of the printing press and the impact of the Internet are not new. Both inventions almost immediately began to undermine the command and control hierarchies of their respective societies. In the case of the printing press, the reimposition of elite control became the work of centuries. And, even then, the technology was constantly falling into the hands of rebels and revolutionaries. Judging by the amount of noise they are making, the elites of the twenty-first century are terrified that the social and cultural upheavals produced by the printing press are about to be replicated by the subversive communications made possible by the Internet.
