Inventing the Internet (Inside Technology)

Rating:
Summary: A History of the Net
Review: This is a terrific book about the history of the Internet and how it came to be. It is very detailed (from both technical and socio-cultural angles) and should be taken as a scholarly read. The importance of the Internet to our society should not be understated, and its significance only grows more every day. It is therefore crucial that users of the Internet (and other life-altering technologies) have a deep understanding about how the technology came into existence, and how it continues to be shaped. Inventing the Internet is the perfect book to help us achieve this understanding. If you use the Internet regularly, then this book is for you.

Rating:
Summary: A History of the Net
Review: This is a terrific book about the history of the Internet and how it came to be. It is very detailed (from both technical and socio-cultural angles) and should be taken as a scholarly read. The importance of the Internet to our society should not be understated, and its significance only grows more every day. It is therefore crucial that users of the Internet (and other life-altering technologies) have a deep understanding about how the technology came into existence, and how it continues to be shaped. Inventing the Internet is the perfect book to help us achieve this understanding. If you use the Internet regularly, then this book is for you.

Rating:
Summary: What's it like to invent a whole new kind of thing?
Review: What makes some new technologies (like the net) widely adopted successes, and others (like the futuristic Paris subway system Bruno Latour describes in *Aramis*) flops? Abbate's answer is flexibility, and the ability to adapt to the unanticipated needs of new clients (which is actually pretty close to Latour's answer), and her fascinating history of the ARPAnet should be required reading for anyone involved in a project of similar ambition and scope.