Stanley Washburn (1878-1950) was an American journalist, and specifically what was then known in the trade as a "cable man". This job owed its existence to the vast network of telegraph lines and undersea cables criss-crossing the world at the start of the 20th century, the first transpacific cable having been completed in 1903. Washburn chased down wars and political upheaval in any corner of the globe, tethered himself to a telegraph line and filled it with stories that could be conveyed to readers in the American Midwest. His job was to inform readers and maintain their interest, and once interest in one conflict waned his editor would send him on to the next. After attending Williams College, Mass., and a short stint at Harvard Law School, he began his career as a police reporter with the Minneapolis Journal in 1901 before making his name as special war correspondent with the Chicago Daily News for whom he covered the Russo-Japanese War, the First Russian Revolution, and Russian involvement in WWI, amongst many other stories. The Cable Game, the first of several books based on his journalistic experiences, was published in 1912 and is subtitled The Adventures of an American Press-Boat in Turkish Waters During the Russian Revolution.The author's spirit of adventure and enthusiasm for tracking down "A World Beat" is evident on every page. Illustrated with photographs.