The Deal of the Century: The Breakup of AT&T

Coll's account of the antitrust case against AT&T is Pulitzer-winning journalism applied to one of the most consequential regulatory decisions of the twentieth century. The 1984 breakup of the Bell System — which had operated as a legal monopoly over American telecommunications for nearly a century — did not merely restructure a corporation; it cleared the ground on which the commercial internet, competitive long-distance carriers, and eventually the mobile industry grew. Coll traces the legal, political, and corporate maneuvering in granular detail, showing how Judge Harold Greene's consent decree reshaped an entire infrastructure sector. The book is a reminder that the market conditions technologists take for granted — open networks, competing carriers, interconnection standards — are not natural phenomena but the products of specific legal and political contests. Essential context for understanding why American telecommunications evolved differently from European state monopolies.