ABSTRACT
Because he is a central and controversial figure, Bell is often called upon to give interviews by journalists or academics. An obligatory question is the one about what he is working on now, what is going to follow his three big ideas. His usual reply is that he has several new ones, some of which are in bits and pieces ‘in the basement’ and some of which will be expansions of successful journal articles. A perennial among these is what one interviewer (Chernow 1979: 17) describes as, ‘a quasi-futuristic excursion into new computer technology and telecommunications technology and their implications for society’.[1] Bell certainly has enough material to put such a book together and indeed, at the time of writing, a small volume is being planned with Harvard
University Press. This chapter seeks to reconstruct what such a book might say.
