Marshall Poe

Poe is the co-founder and a former editor of the academic journal Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. He is the author or editor of several books on Russia including A People Born to Slavery: Russia in Early Modern European Ethnography (2000) and The Russian Elite in the Seventeenth Century (2004).[1] The Russian Moment in World History (2006) is a brief, 116 page book that was written for the general public. It provides an overview of more than 1,400 years of Russian history beginning in the 6th to 9th centuries with the migration of Slavs from central Europe to the northeast. It ends with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.[9]

Poe argues the Soviet Union did not collapse because of the failure of Communism as many pundits assert. Rather, he contends that the Communist Party lost faith in the traditional path that had not only preserved Russian independence for almost five centuries, but had also enabled the country to build a huge empire. That path included a reliance on autocratic leadership, a command economy, tight controls on debate in the public sphere and a state-engineered military. "Using these means," Poe writes, "the Russian elite was able to take a primitive, premodern state and transform it in the course of two centuries into one of the most powerful enterprises on earth. It is difficult to see how such a thing could be seen as a failure."[9]

Poe's work on Russian history has brought back from obscurity the writings of the 16th-century Austrian diplomat Sigismund von Herberstein, who was one of the first European ethnographers of Russia.[10]

From 2003 to 2005, Poe conducted research for The Atlantic magazine and co-wrote the regular feature "Primary Sources.".[3] A typical one, in the magazine's July/August 2005 edition, provided information on a variety of studies and reports supported by online links. For example, it included a study by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences warning about the security risks posed by pools of spent fuel from nuclear power plants; a report from a Brussels-based think tank noting that in spite of fears expressed by U.S. officials, Iran did not appear to be much of a threat to Iraq and a report from the Pew Hispanic Centre showing that increased security measures since 9/11 had not stopped the flow of illegal immigrants into the U.S.[11]

Poe has also written a number of articles for The Atlantic including "Life on Mars" (2004);[12] "How to Beat a Drug Test" (2005);[13] and "Colleges Should Teach Religion to Their Students" (2014).[14]

Poe became known for his commentary on Wikipedia following the publication of his article "The Hive" in The Atlantic.[6] With Wikipedia "taking off" in 2005, he thought its history could be interesting, so he wrote the piece "on spec". His gamble paid off when the editors published it in the summer of 2006.[15]

Poe's article traces the history of how the co-founders of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, gradually moved from their original idea for an online encyclopedia called Nupedia, written and edited by experts, to one in which any online user could contribute. He concludes that Wikipedia's "communal regime" permitted rapid growth as well as organization and improvement. "The result of this difference is there for all to see," he writes, "much of the Internet is a chaotic mess and therefore useless, whereas Wikipedia is well ordered and hence very useful."[6]

Poe's position on Wikipedia is that it's not an encyclopedia that imparts expert knowledge, but a repository of common knowledge. During an interview with Andrew Keen, he argued that through a collaborative group, great things can be accomplished. "Wikipedia is in a sense kind of public utility now. It's much more like the electric company or the water company or the public library than it is anything else and there's no reason it shouldn't exist and continue to expand alongside all kinds of other commercial ventures because it is basically built for free. I mean it's just — it's a utility that is provided to the public at almost no public cost."[16]

In 2011, Poe published A History of Communications: Media and Society from the Evolution of Speech to the Internet, a 337-page book that analyzes how media networks originate, how they function and how they shape social practices and values.[1] Poe explains in the book's introduction that he is seeking to expand and refine the communications theories of the late Canadian scholar Harold Innis. In his 1950 book Empire and Communications, Innis conducted a sweeping historical survey of how various media influenced the rise and fall of empires from ancient to modern times.[17]

Poe advances the idea that new media are developed by inventors and tinkerers, but are not "pulled" into broad use until "organized interests" recognize their need for these new communications tools. He argues, for example, that audiovisual media such as radio, telephone, television and film were developed well before they were taken up by industrial capitalists who needed more effective ways to market the goods they produced. Audiovisual media also served the interests of bureaucrats and politicians who gained popularity by giving citizens access to modern conveniences. "Modern states are welfare states," Poe writes, "and welfare states make sure their citizens have things to listen to and watch."

In turn, audiovisual media shaped social practices and values. They "pushed" societies into a hedonistic pursuit of private entertainment justified by people's need for relaxation in an otherwise stressful society. And, since evolutionary psychology suggests that human beings find it easier to listen and watch than to read and write, audiovisual media caught on rapidly. "When faced with reading a good book," Poe writes, "or watching an awful TV show, most people will watch the awful TV show."[1]

Poe writes about five periods in media history: the age of speech, the age of manuscripts, the age of print, the age of audiovisual media and the age of the Internet. He provides a detailed analysis of each under eight headings: accessibility, privacy, fidelity, volume, velocity, range, persistence and searchability. Poe writes, for example, that in the 150,000 years during which speech was the only medium or network, its accessibility was high because nearly everyone could speak and listen. Privacy, however, was low in such face-to-face communication and so too was fidelity because speech can convey only sounds, not pictures or other direct sensory information. Volume and range were also low because the unaided human voice can't carry very far or to many people, but velocity was high because speech travels at the speed of sound. Poe notes that speech is not a persistent medium because it fades away instantly, but it is searchable because what is said can remain in people's memories. He draws many conclusions from this analysis including his theory that societies dominated by speech tended to be democratized and egalitarian, but also distrustful of strangers because as a medium, speech is suited to small, tightly knit groups.[1]

In his 2002 essay "Note to Self: Print Monograph Dead; Invent New Publishing Model," published in the Journal of Electronic Publishing, Poe questioned the viability of the old academic publishing model, arguing in favor of self-publishing and print on demand. He explained how he did this with one of the two volumes of his prosopographical study of the Russian elite in the early modern period. "Shortly after I sent the book for review", he writes, "a very worried journal editor contacted me. He was upset that I hadn't included a copyright page on the e-book I sent him. Without a copyright page, he explained, any reader could copy my book, send it all over the world, or use it in the classroom — all without my permission. That, I responded, was the point. (I'm not sure he got it.)"[18]