Ask HN: Any good books on the history of the internet?

14 points by dom2 5 years ago | 13 comments

Looking for some books about the creation and the history of the internet. Ideally not purely technical, with a focus on how society impacted the internet's development and vice versa.

mulholio 5 years ago |

Some of my favourite internet-specific books:

- The Dream Machine. Fantastic tech history coverage with a particular focus on the lead up to the internet https://press.stripe.com/#the-dream-machine.

- Tools for Thought - Lots of similar ground to the Dream Machine but with a less internet-centric focus. Still great though - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tools-Thought-History-Mind-Expandin...

Perhaps not internet focused, but tangential/technology:

- The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation

- One Giant Leap (Apollo Missions. Decent amount of computing foucs)

- Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson

- Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration. Lots of interesting snippets of tech and non-tech history

HenryR 5 years ago |

Where Wizards Stay Up Late (https://www.amazon.com/Where-Wizards-Stay-Up-Late/dp/0684832...)

mnunez 5 years ago |

A book that I loved since the first time I picked it from a library shelf back in 1998 or so, "Computer - A history of the information machine", lists the following book as additional resource about the history of the Internet: Abbate, Janet (2000). Inventing the Internet[1].

"Janet Abbate recounts the key players and technologies that allowed the Internet to develop; but her main focus is always on the social and cultural factors that influenced the Internet's design and use."

[1] https://archive.org/details/inventinginterne00abba

leejoramo 5 years ago |

The Cuckoo's Egg tells the story of the early internet, breaking into Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s net by Cold War spiss. Well Written by Clifford Stoll the net admin/astronomer at the center of the story. Plenty of the tech and culture of the internet young internet.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo%27s_Egg

a3n 5 years ago |

This Wikipedia article has pointers and references in so many directions, you're bound to find something about what you're looking for, or that points to something else that you're looking for. The article itself is a good start.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet

japhyr 5 years ago |

This isn't entirely specific to the internet, but rather the development of UNIX. Brian Kernighan's UNIX: A History and a Memoir [0] is great. It covers a bit of the technical underpinnings of UNIX, but also covers the people and personalities behind its development. It helped me better understand many of the tools we still use today.

https://www.amazon.com/Brian-W-Kernighan/dp/1695978552/ref=s...

DataDaoDe 5 years ago |

I just finished reading "The Victorian Internet" by Tom Standage and would highly recommend it. The book is an informative and enjoyable read about the rise and fall of the telegraph in the 19th century. The development of the telegraph has a lot of parallels to the modern internet that are worth contemplating and this book provides a point worth noting - the modern internet was not the first means of rapid exchange of information through networks spanning the entire planet.

gabrielsroka 5 years ago |

Not a book, but a video from one of the creators, Vint Cerf: https://youtu.be/Hf0rjtnwC9A

jcontini 5 years ago |

The latter chapters of "The Innovators" by Walter Isaacson did this well I thought. Just finished it and highly recommend.

sgillen 5 years ago |

Not a book, but I’ve been really liking this blog post. https://technicshistory.com/the-backbone/

giantg2 5 years ago |

Not explicitly internet or complete history, but The Best of 2600 is a good historical tech book.

redis_mlc 5 years ago |

You can see one or two of the original Internet routers at the Computer History Museum in Palo Alto.

vithlani 5 years ago |

Mother Earth Mother Board -- a superb essay by Neal Steaphenson on internet cables.