McIlwain's book is unlike other history books that I've read. It incorporates McIlwain's own writing, long quotes from oral histories, and direct reproduction of some primary documents from the time period that McIlwain is covering. Yet while the writing style is idiosyncratic, the stories he tells are amazing. He has tracked down remarkable Black pioneers in computing and gotten them to share their stories. All aspects of computing get covered: retail, repair, programming, building online communities, and so on. In the concluding section of the book McIlwain explores how computers have been used against Black communities, thus giving us a comprehensive picture of computing and Black America at the dawn of this new technology.