The Dream Machine

I love reading about the early days of computing, and this book pulled several of the stories I was familiar with (ARPA, Xerox PARC, Bell Labs) and wove them into a single thread. The book loosely follows the career of JCR Licklider (Lick) and the role he played in promoting, funding, inventing, and evangelizing modern computing.

In the end, a rather fantastic overview of a difficult subject to capture: computer networking and interaction. Both of these concepts are intangible so the author rightfully attempted to describe them through their human proponents. Waldrop does a commendable job of balancing a large cast of characters. Some contributors are inevitably overlooked, but it makes for a good introduction for deeper study.