From Gutenberg to Google: The History of Our Future

I really enjoyed listening to this book. Hearing more than just who invented what but also how it effected the economy and society was eye opening. Taking a wider view of how some inventions effected the world for good or bad is what every politician and business executive should think about. Monopoly may make you money in the short run but sharing technology helps everyone.

I really enjoyed the first half of the book the author had some very interesting ideas about earlier networks. However, it lost a star at the point of electronic networks and the internet. He missed some major events and rather than history it felt like he had an agenda that was far too obvious. In the second half he spoke in the buzzwords of upper management rather than the words of the engineers and workers that he used in the first half. It may just be that he was always using the same voice but that I missed it is a reflection on my own lack of knowledge, if so it makes the book worse not better.

Wheeler offers a powerful perspective of the technological changes of yesteryear and their implications for the even faster changes underway today. He makes a strong case for the necessity of new protections that keep the consumer and the public's best interest in mind. He draws on powerful frames from his history as FCC chair and a longtime technology and access advocate to give us an updated vocabulary and understanding of how we can best use past as a way to light the way forward. A punchy, and easy-to-read, primer on the forces at play. Important for our times.

"From Gutenberg to Google" is a wonderful combination of story telling and intellectual analysis. Tom Wheeler's stories connect us to the past and help us understand ourselves in the present. Recommended for readers interested in intellectual history that conveys a sense of hope and gratitude.

Before receiving "From Gutenberg to Google" I was anticipating enjoying this book by Tom Wheeler presenting his perspective on a history of network revolutions, because I have a deep interest in history and some familiarity with computer networks (master's degree in information technology). Unfortunately, I found this book a difficult read. Back when I completed my master's thesis, the grammar checker built into the WordPerfect word processing software of the time rated the overly-dense prose in the first draft of my thesis at the 22nd grade level. Since simpler writing is usually clearer writing, that's really not good, but I wouldn't be surprised if that same tool rated this book as even worse than that. It took me a very long time (weeks) to slog through this book, because I had to keep re-reading sentences and paragraphs to parse out what the author was trying to say. Here is one example sentence from Chapter Two: "As the merchant printers' distributed authority began to destroy controlled-access information silos, the disaggregation of centralized authority over ideas and institutions followed." A book club could spend an entire meeting just discussing that sentence. There might possibly be some profound insights in this book, but for me it required too much mental effort to root the concepts out and translate them into simpler language so I could try to follow the author's train of thought, and I didn't enjoy the experience. Maybe I would have liked the book more if I just read through it superficially without trying to closely follow the dissertation and without trying to distinguish fact from opinion. Someone who is writing their own master's thesis on technology might find a few nuggets in this book, but for me it was not an enjoyable read. Frankly, I probably would not have finished the book it if I had not committed to reviewing it.

Interesante y entretenido libro que analiza las grandes transformaciones tecnológicas que cambiaron la forma en que los seres humanos nos comunicamos, interactuamos y formamos redes. Desde la invención de la imprenta, pasando por la máquina de vapor, ferrocarriles, telégrafo y hasta las modernas redes digitales actuales, el libro describe como surgieron y como alteraron a la humanidad. Interesante es el análisis de los patrones que explican el surgimiento de estas tecnologías y la forma como se desarrollaron y expandieron, cambiando la sociedad fundamentalmente. Me pareció recomendable y el análisis restrospectivo que hace no solo permite sacar conclusiones y patrones, también entrega detalles históricos interesantes respecto a cada innovación.

I am not a history book reader in general, but Tom Wheeler has had time to be brief and tells the story which is easy to read and understand. The storyline in all these networks is how it has impacted our society in very positive way and how the establishment has objected their implementation in early days.

It was a thoughtful exploration of the evict of print on communication and culture and that of other things like the railroads and now the internet, all of which tend to spread knowledge but possibly distance ourselves from each other without face-to-face communication.

An intriguing explanation of the power of the networks of disseminating information. Beginning with the exploitative practices of indulgences and the church's monopoly on book printing, to the fourfold increase in small towns in the US directly caused by the steam locomotive and the 'dark magic' of the telegraph, and finally to the internet. I found the incremental development of the computer from Charles Babbage's detailed plans for such a machine to the eventual establishment of the internet by Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf particularly interesting.Wheeler provides a balanced analysis of the people who contributed to changes in human networks, calling out the dishonesty of famous inventors such as Samuel B Morse and Thomas Edison and acknowledging less-heralded inventors like John Atanasoff and Alfred Vail.The overarching theme of the book is not the immediate effect that the new networks had on society but that the secondary effects of new networks are the truly influential effects.