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Summary: important background for the current craze
Review: *inventing the internet* is an impressively sound treatment of a 'hot' topic, and abbate manages to provide thorough anaylsis and original research without giving into the hype. the book meets critical scholarly standards in history of technology, but is also accessible to the average informed reader.
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Summary: Nicely done
Review: A thoughtful, well-researched and well-written account of the history of the Internet. Required reading for anyone interested in where this technology came from and why.
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Summary: Intriguing, but not for the juvenile
Review: For how long have you been aware of the web? Five years? Six? Didn't it seem as though we woke up one morning and there it was? Not so, as you will find out when you read this fascinating account of the way in which Internet technology took on a life of its own and morphed into the gigantic marketplace/library/chatroom that we think of today.For example, did you know that the techniques used in the Internet were born out of Cold War paranoia? Or that email was an afterthought to the original system that unexpectedly became the most popular application of the network? Or that in the early 1980s, the military agency running the Internet was so afraid of hackers breaking into the system ("unauthorized penetrations," as one army major put it) that they split the network in two, one for the military and one for the civilians? Read the book for the details on these and other intriguing techno-tidbits.
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Summary: Great Stocking Stuffer for the Techies on Your List
Review: For how long have you been aware of the web? Five years? Six? Didn't it seem as though we woke up one morning and there it was? Not so, as you will find out when you read this fascinating account of the way in which Internet technology took on a life of its own and morphed into the gigantic marketplace/library/chatroom that we think of today. For example, did you know that the techniques used in the Internet were born out of Cold War paranoia? Or that email was an afterthought to the original system that unexpectedly became the most popular application of the network? Or that in the early 1980s, the military agency running the Internet was so afraid of hackers breaking into the system ("unauthorized penetrations," as one army major put it) that they split the network in two, one for the military and one for the civilians? Read the book for the details on these and other intriguing techno-tidbits.
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Summary: Will high-tech history repeat itself?
Review: If we don't know where we've been, how will we know where we're going? It's somehow reassuring to learn that a technology which seems to be so new and to change at lightning speed actually has a history spanning several decades. This book is intelligently written; it's not for the reader who is looking merely for fluff and sound bites. I've recommend it to many friends in a variety of fields since internet technology, and the decisions that have been made about it, affect us all in one way or another.
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Summary: Insightful!
Review: Janet Abbate exhaustively researched her scholarly history of the Internet and presents it with the detail and tone you would expect from a historian, which she is. Therefore, don't come looking for a breezy, "gee whiz" approach. This is not a promotional pat on the back to the companies that helped popularize the Internet, nor does it glorify dot-coms or any of their fearless leaders. In fact, Abbate devotes the first 75% of her book to the precursor to the public Internet - the ARPANET system used by scientists, researchers and the U.S. military. We recommend this book to all readers who want to know how the Internet really came into existence and how it evolved from a private, secret, scientific resource into today's vast realm of public information, auctions, virtual bookstores, e-mail and even getAbstract.
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Summary: Ms. Hhhhabate has no CLUE what the internet is!
Review: Ms. Abbate still has trouble logging into America Online! She frequently trips over the ethernet cable going into her office. That's about as close as she gets to the "history" of the internet.
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Summary: A well argued and documented claim
Review: One should read Inventing the Internet to explore the thesis of technological determinism shaping the evolution of the Internet. After reading the book, the reader can also judge the success of Abbate's integral thesis that social determinism also shaped the evolution of the Internet. Janet Abbate is a professor in the Department of History at the University of Maryland in College Park. She derived the book from her 1994 dissertation research undertaken at the University of Pennsylvania. The book was produced with six chapters, which she arranged in rough chronological order. Each chapter was then subdivided into topical sections. The book's details support Abbate's claim that the Internet was not born in a discrete originating event, but evolved over a twenty-year period through the convergence of technological advances and societal needs.
Rating:
Summary: A well argued and documented claim
Review: One should read Inventing the Internet to explore the thesis of technological determinism shaping the evolution of the Internet. After reading the book, the reader can also judge the success of Abbate's integral thesis that social determinism also shaped the evolution of the Internet. Janet Abbate is a professor in the Department of History at the University of Maryland in College Park. She derived the book from her 1994 dissertation research undertaken at the University of Pennsylvania. The book was produced with six chapters, which she arranged in rough chronological order. Each chapter was then subdivided into topical sections. The book's details support Abbate's claim that the Internet was not born in a discrete originating event, but evolved over a twenty-year period through the convergence of technological advances and societal needs.
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing, but not for the juvenile
Review: The reviewer from "Flagpole" is obviously a disgruntled former student of Ms. Abbate's. Perhaps he flunked a midterm or wrote a lousy paper. But that's his problem... Anyway, the book is excellent. Looking forward to more insightful analysis on the history of technology in her upcoming books.
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