Ask PG/HN: Recommended reading on the history of technology

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6979671

55 43 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

In the 'Are Software Patents Evil' essay, the line "one of my main hobbies is the history of technology" prompted me to ask: what is some recommended reading on the history of technology? I'm looking for something that takes about as broad a view as one of pg's essays - googling seems to give histories of very specific subsets of technology.

russtrpkovski• 13 years ago

Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages

Also, Walter Issacson is working on a new book on the history of the internet

https://medium.com/medium-long/e50f65132b55

spenrose• 13 years ago

Isaacson's biography of Jobs was obtuse on technology. Caveat lector.

nswanberg• 13 years ago

I like this book, which describes who made what, and when: http://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Technology-Earliest-D/dp... up until 1900. This book itself is compiled from a multi-volume set that, as far as I can tell, is no longer in print.

pg's suggestion is probably a little different--pick a subject that holds your intererest rather than slogging through the entire history (there are also a couple of technology-specific history books here): http://www.paulgraham.com/raq.html

random_coder• 13 years ago

Neal Stephenson's novels work for me :)

sourc3• 13 years ago

Cryptonomicon is my favorite so far! Glad I am not the only one who enjoys his writing.

sunsu• 13 years ago

A long time ago in undergrad, I took a "History of Technology" class. This was one of the books we read that I got a lot from:

"The Chip" http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0375758283

doctornemo• 13 years ago

Howard Rheingold's Tools for Thought. http://www.rheingold.com/texts/tft/

computer• 13 years ago

IBM and the Holocaust, to see how the rise of technology made the holocaust possible, and for the duality between business and ethics.

bountie• 13 years ago

Check out "As We May Think", a legendary essay by Dr. Vannevar Bush in 1945. Bush was the Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development and "coordinated the activities of some six thousand leading American scientists in the application of science to warfare".

The topic of his essay was: what should scientists do for the benefit of society now that the war is over?

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-ma...

gregw1342• 13 years ago

Seconded. His imagination of a computer-like workstation, cobbled together from 1940's technology, was the most fascinating thing I've read all year.

chl• 13 years ago

Two excellent technology history books I read in 2013 are _Dream Machine_ by M. Mitchell Waldrop and _Computing in the Middle Ages_ by Severo Ornstein.

_Dream Machine_ in particular tied together many strands that I had previously explored separately; it's a far-ranging, incredibly well-researched work that covers the development of interactive (and, eventually, personal & networked) computing from its origins at MIT's Whirlwind and Lincoln projects, leading, in big part thanks to J.C.R. Licklider's long-term research (management) vision, to the development of the ARPANET, and, maybe even more importantly, the formation of an "ARPA community", where many of the big ideas were first brought to reality and explored in depth (at BBN, SRI, Utah, PARC &c.).

All in all, it's probably the best history of computing-as-we-know-it-today and a clear recommendation for anyone with just the slightest interest in the idea history of the field.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Dream-Machine-Licklider-Revolution...

_Computing in the Middle Ages_ is a very personal account, supplying the critically important perspective of someone actually working in the trenches in the time-frame covered by _Dream Machine_.

Severo Ornstein co-designed the ARPANET "Interface Message Processors", essentially the first routers. It's also a wonderful history of the LINC (by Wesley Clark et al.), a remarkable (and remarkably forgotten) machine and the direct philosophical fore-runner of all "personal computers".

http://www.amazon.com/Computing-Middle-Ages-Trenches-1955-19...

dbarlett• 13 years ago

Seconding Dream Machine. Three more:

The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood http://www.amazon.com/The-Information-History-Theory-Flood/d...

Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe http://www.amazon.com/Turings-Cathedral-Origins-Digital-Univ...

Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future: The Ingenious Ideas That Drive Today's Computers http://www.amazon.com/Nine-Algorithms-That-Changed-Future/dp...

keithwarren• 13 years ago

Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

It is a great book written by one of the great computer scientists of our time. It tracks the evolution of code and computing from morse code and braille on to number systems, early processors and even into how processors handle this information. When I hire someone for nearly any position, I buy them this book.

*Don't let the title fool you, this is not some discussion about high level languages, this is the down and dirty stuff.

http://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Softwa...

rhizome31• 13 years ago

Code is a great book but it's rather a fictional story explaining how computers work than a history book. It does contain a lot of interesting historical elements though. Definitely a recommended read but I'm not sure it's really what the OP if after here.

dave1629• 13 years ago

Kurt Beyer's book on Grace Hopper gives a great perspective on the early days of computing: http://www.amazon.com/Invention-Information-Lemelson-Studies...

A very comprehensive view an lots of great stories in James Gleick's _The Information_: http://www.amazon.com/Information-History-Theory-Flood/dp/14...

phillmv• 13 years ago

This is a little broader than what you're asking but this year I read two books that have really affected my thinking and I think everyone should read.

First one up is Command and Control - which is a history of american nuclear weapons/nuclear weapon accidents. It spends most of its time building a narrative around a single major incident but the meaty sections are all about how the technology was invented and deployed and it's a gripping read.

Second one - just wrapping it up now - is The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, which is a history of the shipping container. It sorta reads mostly as a pop econ/biz biography of Malcom McLean but it's really about the power of technology to reshape how we live.

hobolobo• 13 years ago

Not sure if it's what you're after exactly but Where Wizards Stay Up Late:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/281818.Where_Wizards_Stay...

acqq• 13 years ago

I've really enjoyed reading

http://www.amazon.com/How-Got-Here-Irreverent-Technology/dp/...

"How We Got Here: A Slightly Irreverent History of Technology and Markets" by Andy Kessler

"Expanding on themes first raised in his tour de force, Running Money, Andy Kessler unpacks the entire history of Silicon Valley and Wall Street, from the Industrial Revolution to computers, communications, money, gold and stock markets. These stories cut (by an unscrupulous editor) from the original manuscript were intended as a primer on the ways in which new technologies develop from unprofitable curiosities to essential investments. Indeed, How We Got Here is the book Kessler wishes someone had handed him on his first day as a freshman engineering student at Cornell or on the day he started on Wall Street. This book connects the dots through history to how we got to where we are today."

iterationx• 13 years ago

The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers Tom Standage

Ted Talk: "Jeff Bezos: The electricity metaphor for the web's future" http://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_bezos_on_the_next_web_innovati...

bearwithclaws• 13 years ago

Not 'reading', but I watched Steve Blank's "Secret History of Silicon Valley" presentation and thought it was mind blowing: http://entrepreneurship.columbia.edu/events/steve-blank-the-...

govindkabra31• 13 years ago

+1, that's inspiring! Totally helped me understand on how all this innovation came about here.

davidw• 13 years ago

This is a pretty good book; it's best on the 80ies, early 90ies and the 'PC' era, so it's more of a niche compared with the "history of technology" taken as a whole. But that makes it more thorough in what it covers. It's also quite entertaining and has some smart things to say about how to avoid major screw-ups:

http://www.amazon.com/In-Search-Stupidity-Marketing-Disaster...

stcredzero• 13 years ago

Dealers of Lightning

It's important to know how far in advance stuff in research labs can be from everyday life. The trappings of the computerized office of the mid 90's were bouncing around Xerox PARC in the 70's.

jseliger• 13 years ago

I'm not Paul Graham, but Joel Mokyr's book's are all very interesting: http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&tag=thstsst-20&linkCode=as2&... . Start with The Lever of Athena but really it's hard to go wrong with any of them.

Mokyr's books aren't exactly about the history of technology: they're at the intersection of economics, technology, and politics.

Another good choice: Steven Berlin Johnson's Where Good Ideas Come From.

meatsock• 13 years ago

where wizards stay up late isbn 9780684832678

weaving the web by berners-lee 006251587X

the master switch - tim wu

the soul of a new machine - tracy kidder 9780316491976

dealers of lightning

projectileboy• 13 years ago

I don't think it's exactly what you're looking for, but you might enjoy James Burke's series Connections, as well as The Day the Universe Changed. It's always fun to watch Burke connect the dots from technical advances to historical events.

sideb0ard• 13 years ago

Howard Rheingold's 'Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind-Expanding Technology' - covers George Boole, Charles Babbage, Alan Turing, John Von Neumann

Jon Gernter's 'The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation' - very cool story about the formation of Bell Labs and covers the Transistor, Satellite comms, the laser, and a ton of other stuff up till, but not disappointingly not including Unix.

John Markoff's 'What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry' - what is says!

Ted Nelson's 'Geeks Bearing Gifts' (or any of his YouTube Computers For Cynics videos) - awesome, curmudgeonly alternative (but accurate) version of computer history.

Michael A. Hiltzik's 'Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age' - as someone else mentioned, really great history

m_d• 13 years ago

Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Stephen Levy (http://amzn.com/1449388396)

A great look at the people involved in the early years of personal computing, including Stallman, Gates, Wozniak, etc. Apart from the technology, Levy discusses the basic philosophy and motivations of the personalities involved.

quinndupont• 13 years ago

Some of the academic authors for the history of computers in particular would be Mahoney, Cerruzi, Aspray, Abbate, & Campbell-Kelly. For history of technology in general look up authors publishing in Society for the History of Technology (SHOT), including oldies like Lynne White, etc.

codex• 13 years ago

You'll want Burke's Connections:

http://www.amazon.com/Connections-James-Burke/dp/0743299558

kordless• 13 years ago

Absolutely. This is where it all started.

kingkilr• 13 years ago

I highly reccomend "The Machine in America: A Social History of Technology" and "Technology in Postwar America: A History", both by Carroll Pursell.

sraut• 13 years ago

It's not a book but rather a course. There is also a recommended reading list.

https://www.coursera.org/course/insidetheinternet

calibraxis• 13 years ago

Burke's "Connections" series is free online: (http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL734BAB2B716CC777)

You may also be interested in the forces in society which make technological progress possible — and which kill it. Mariana Mazzucato wrote _The Entrepreneurial State_. David F. Noble wrote a couple books.

Also anthropologist David Graeber's essay _Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit_ (http://www.thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars) ; you may prefer his talk "On Bureaucratic Technologies & the Future as Dream-Time" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QgSJkk1tng). His video makes the interesting point that since the 1970's, we've focussed on bureaucratic technologies like IT (we fill out forms on the net all day), instead of more imaginative technologies. To compensate, we're good at merely simulating imaginative technologies, like in movies.

natch• 13 years ago

Kevin Kelly is a provocative thinker on this stuff. (He created the original vision that became Wired magazine, though he never gets credit for this... credit went to the folks who kicked in the money.)

http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_kelly_tells_technology_s_epic...

Kurzweil also talks about history of technology when he talks about accelerating returns.

It's useful to think way back imho... for example, language is a very early example of a technology.

KMBredt• 13 years ago

Kelly has also written a book about it: "What Technology Wants" [1] and blogs at http://kk.org/ where the 'Technium' section was the basis for the aforementioned book.

[1] http://kk.org/books/what-technology-wants.php

sweettea• 13 years ago

I plan to go to grad school in history of technology, and spent senior year studying the history of technology at MIT, which has one of the best such programs around. Of my library, designed in preparation for quals one day, these are the best books fitting your description. These are all _broad_ histories of technology, more on the order of the Industrial Revolution than on modern technology. Amazon has good summaries of all of these.

The Unbound Prometheus --- a history of eastern europe technology and its social impacts.

From The American System to Mass Production --- Hounshell, a history of the development of the assembly line, and in particular the forerunners to Ford's mythologized mass production line (which, in many elements, surpassed it, and demonstrate that it was not particularly unique except in marketing)

America By Design --- Noble is a very circumspect, controversial historian of technology.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism --- classic on the controversial idea that protestantism was responsible for capitalism and the resulting technology

Does Technology Drive History -- collection of essays by the founders of the field of science, technology, and society.

Civilizing the Machine --- technology's interaction with American values and how those developed concurrently.

Major Problems in the History of American Technology --- a collection of original documents and essays interpreting them in a historical basis, ed. by a founder of the field.

The Tentacles of Progress --- how technology lends itself to imperialism, and furthers exploitation, even when other nations fund the development of infrastructure in developing nations.

The Machine in the Garden --- possibly the single most important book on this list, the one that turned my life upside down and which I think about most regularly. It posits that America's idyll of a tech-free natural scene is actually a balance of technology and nature, and is a artificial nature propped up by machine, and demonstrates this history of this tension in American life from Shakespeare to Jefferson to Thoreau to the modern day. It completely turned my conception of the perfect life upsidedown.

Digital Apollo --- a history of the computing history of the Apollo program, especially the tensions in the software development sides between good management and perfect programs.

Science and Corporate Strategy, DuPont R&D 1902-1982 --- if you're interested in the development of big chem, or in the history of companies having R&D departments, this is the book for you. The DuPonts were very well-educated, many being MIT alums, and the chemical company they built was innovative in many different ways --- this book is a interesting discussion of the society and the technological pressures that drove and still drive innovation.

gregw1342• 13 years ago

The Universal Computer. It's a remarkably readable walkthrough through the lives and ideas of mathematicians whose work indirectly led to the Turing machine: Leibniz, Boole, Russell, Cantor, Godel, and a few others. If anyone else can recommend more books on the mathematics that led to computing I'd love to hear about them.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Universal-Computer-Leibniz-Turing/...

sentenza• 13 years ago

Want to get to know the history of nuclear power, spiced with interesting anecdotes? Then these two books are the right thing for you:

Atomic Awakening by James Mahaffey

and

Atomic by Jim Baggott

It's of course only one technology, but a technology from which very broad uses have sprung.

jrkelly• 13 years ago

The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes covers both the history of nuclear power and the rise of the US research complex (NSF, NIH, universities like MIT and Stanford). One of the best books I've ever read.

bhaumik• 13 years ago

I highly recommend "Go To" by Steve Lohr [1]. The book follows a chronological path from the pre-Hopper/Turing era through Apache and the early open source movement. We learn history of the following languages: FORTRAN, COBAL, Unix, C, BASIC, Visual Basic, Algol, Pascal, C++. Also covered are the founding stories of IBM, Microsoft and Macintosh and their "business" practices.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Engineers-Scientists-Iconoclasts---Pro...

ivan_ah• 13 years ago

Secret History of Silicon Valley

   [ During WW2, silicon valley was a hotbed of      ]
   [ research in radio and sensing technology.       ]
   [ It's longish but an interesting history lesson. ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo

jonjacky• 13 years ago

Thomas Hughes' books take a wider view than most of the others mentioned so far: American Genesis covers 1870 - 1970 and Rescuing Prometheus discusses the SAGE computerized air defense system, the Atlas missile, Arpanet, and the Boston central artery/tunnel project.

Ask PG/HN: Recommended reading on the history of technology

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