19th Century Information Highway [30min]

Jonathan Freedland discovers that the debates over the power of search engines like Google are hardly new. Tracing back to the early 19th century, he discovers that Whig politician Henry Brougham claimed the same Utopian vision of Google's founders -- to make the world's information "universally accessible and useful". Setting up the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge -- which harnessed the latest in steam press technology -- he sought to spread knowledge to every corner of the kingdom. But just as today, Brougham ran into controversy -- criticised on both sides for the degree of control he had over the flow of information. And his Utopian dreams -- that knowledge could transform society -- never came to fruition. Will today's search engine visionaries meet the same fate?