Introduction -- Dispatches from underground -- The public service of discretion -- Gendering the Central Telegraph Office -- Bodied telegraphy -- Unintended network -- Tapped wires -- Martial mercuries -- Voices on the wires -- Epilogue.

During the first two-thirds of the 20th century the themes of sectorial structure and compared performance prevail in Italian economic historiography. In contrast, in the last part of the century attention is focused on the behavior of single economic actors and their micro-economic strategies....