The first 'networked era' followed the introduction of the printing press to Europe in the late fifteenth century and lasted until the end of the eighteenth century. The second -our own time -dates from the 1970s, though I argue that the technological revolution we associate with Silicon Valley was more a consequence than a cause of a crisis of hierarchical institutions. The intervening period, from the late 1790s until the late 1960s, saw the opposite trend: hierarchical institutions re-established their control and successfully shut down or co-opted networks. The zenith of hierarchically organized power was in fact the mid-twentieth century -the era of totalitarian regimes and total war.