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A History of the Internet and the Digital Future
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A History of the Internet and the Digital Future (2010) (edit title/settings)

by Johnny Ryan (Author) (edit contributors)

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A great adjustment in human affairs is underway. Political, commercial and cultural life is changing from the centralized, hierarchical and standardized structures of the industrial age to something radically different: the economy of the emerging digital era.       A History of the... read more

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

  • - History of the Internet from cold war to cloud. Understand the trends of the past to predict the digital future.

Summary edit see section history

A great adjustment in human affairs is underway. Political, commercial and cultural life is changing from the centralized, hierarchical and standardized structures of the industrial age to something radically different: the economy of the emerging digital era.

A History of the Internet... read more

A great adjustment in human affairs is underway. Political, commercial and cultural life is changing from the centralized, hierarchical and standardized structures of the industrial age to something radically different: the economy of the emerging digital era.

A History of the Internet and the Digital Future tells the story of the development of the Internet from the 1950s to the present, and examines how the balance of power has shifted between the individual and the state in the areas of censorship, copyright infringement, intellectual freedom and terrorism and warfare. Johnny Ryan explains how the Internet has revolutionized political campaigns; how the development of the World Wide Web enfranchised a new online population of assertive, niche consumers; and how the dot-com bust taught smarter firms to capitalize on the power of digital artisans.

In the coming years, platforms such as the iPhone and Android rise or fall depending on their treading the line between proprietary control and open innovation. The trends of the past may hold out hope for the record and newspaper industry. From the government-controlled systems of the ColdWar to today’s move towards cloud computing, user-driven content and the new global commons, this book reveals the trends that are shaping the businesses, politics, and media of the digital future.

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Quotes edit see section history

  • “The Industrial revolution created a world of centralization and organized hierarchy. Its defining pattern was a single, central dot to which all strands led. But the emerging digital age is different. ... The pattern of political, commercial and cultural life is changing.”
    Johnny Ryan
  • “The surest way to smartness is through massive dumbness”
    Kevin Kelly
  • “prime time is my time”
    Nicholas Negroponte
  • “Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money. After a heady experience of that kind, normally sensible people drift into behavior akin to that of Cinderella at the ball. They know that overstaying the festivities - that is, continuing to speculate in companies that have gigantic valuations relative to the cash they are likely to generate in the future - will eventually bring on pumpkins and mice. But they nevertheless hate to miss a single minute of what is one helluva party. Therefore, the giddy participants all plan to leave just seconds before midnight. There’s a problem, though: They are dancing in a room in which the clocks have no hands.”
    Warren Buffett

Table of Contents edit see section history

Preface: The Great Adjustment 7
PHASE I: DISTRIBUTED NETWORK, CENTRIFUGAL IDEAS
<1> A Concept Born in the Shadow of the Nuke 11
<2> The Military Experiment 23
<3> The Essence of the Internet 31
<4> Computers Become Cheap, Fast and Common 45
PHASE II: EXPANSION
<5> The Hoi Polloi Connect 65
<6> Communities Based on Interest, not Proximity 74
<7> From Military Networks to the Global Internet 88
<8> The Web! 105
<9> A Platform for Trade and the Pitfalls of the Dot-com 120
PHASE III: THE EMERGING ENVIRONMENT
<10> Web 2.0 and the Return to the Oral Tradition 137
<11> New Audiences, the Fourth Wall and Extruded Media 151
<12> Two-way Politics 164
<13> Promise and Peril 178
> glossary 198
> references 201
> select bibliography 229
> acknowledgements 234 > index 235

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Johnny Ryan (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Country: United Kingdom
Publication Date: 2010
ISBN: 978 1 86189 777 0
Page Count: 246

Classification edit see section history

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

  • Author's blog
  • Chapter 1, excerpted in Ars Technica: Johnny Ryan's A History of the Internet and the Digital Future has just been released and is already drawing rave reviews. Ars Technica is proud to present three chapters from the book, condensed and adapted for our readers. This first installment is adapted from Chapter 1, "A Concept Born in the Shadow of the Nuke," and it looks at the role that the prospect of nuclear war played in the technical and policy decisions that gave rise to the Internet.

More Books Like This edit see section history

   
  • The Shallows
  • The Big Switch
  • Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?
  • Where Wizards Stay up Late
  • Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer, Collector's Edition
  • Wikinomics
  • Grown Up Digital
  • Being Digital
  • The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything
  • Hackers

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