Hugh R. Slotten, <i>Beyond Sputnik and the Space Race: The Origins of Global Satellite Communications</i> Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022. Pp. 256. ISBN 978-1-4214-4122-1. $55.00 (hardcover).

Telecommunications satellites in geosynchronous orbit nearly 36,000 kilometres above the Earth's surface have fundamentally reshaped the sharing of information.They have enabled live intercontinental broadcasts, transmitted thousands of television channels across the globe, enabled global financial transactions and expanded broadband to the world's remotest areas.But historians of science and technology have produced relatively little on satellite communications, ceding the field largely to media studies or business scholars.This insightful book explores the origins of global satellite communications through two institutions that shaped their structure, priorities and nature during the Cold War -Comsat and Intelsat.Slotten's crisp narrative foregrounds the US government's efforts to establish ground rules for satellite telecommunications in the early 1960s, in a bid to cement US global leadership.This imperative was underpinned by deep contradictions: the United States paid lip service to truly global satellite communications to underscore American largesse toward developing nations while also seeking to keep actual influence and power firmly in US hands.The book begins with late 1950s attempts to set US policy for new communications satellite technology and concludes with the creation of Intelsat, the first global satellite communications service provider in 1964.Widespread discussions in the 1950s about possible uses of communications satellites were dominated by national-security imperatives.The formation of NASA in 1958 highlighted a need to set federal policy for the development and use of communications satellites.Some within NASA, though not all, believed that private industry should lead.Another point of debate was the fight over allocation of frequencies for use by future communications satellites, a battle that unfolded in the halls of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which had for decades been a forum for arbitrating conflicting claims over parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.To revise the ITU's frequency allocations for satellite service, the United States spearheaded an international meeting, the 1959 World Administrative Radio Conference.Few countries attending had active space programmes.As Slotten notes, the United States 'had a difficult time convincing other countries to give up use of scarce frequencies in congested bands' (p.48).Slotten's claim that the conference showcased developing countries' power within the UN is perhaps overstated given that the non-aligned movement had