From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg

October 14, 2013
Naughton, a columnist at the U.K.’s Observer and author of A Brief History of the Future, offers a perceptive primer about the Information Age. Along the way, he provides a savvy historical overview of the information industry, from the printed page to the rapid evolution of the computer, to the WikiLeaks revelations. Naughton dissects the current debates surrounding copyright laws and intellectual property, distilling complex issues into accessible facts and revealing that our relationship with the Internet is indeed a work in progress. Avoiding an abundance of scare tactics found in many books of this type, Naughton offers a practical approach to the ever-evolving Internet and takes “the long view” of coexistence without overplaying the fears of over-dependence, lack of security, and privacy.

November 15, 2013
So what's the big deal with this Internet thing, anyway? Technology historian and writer Naughton (Vice President/Wolfson Coll., Cambridge; A Brief History of the Future, 2000) provides a mostly convincing answer. Former Talking Heads frontman and author David Byrne has lately been pointing out that the Internet is a terrible thing for music and culture, largely due to the fact that it's made it impossible to sell what can be freely stolen--beg pardon, downloaded. Naughton takes a more forgiving view, invoking the Schumpeterian notion of creative destruction, which requires...well, destruction. In the case of the Internet, part of what is being destroyed is an old economy, though, as Naughton notes, in the case of the musical economy, it could have worked out differently had the record companies not been so greedy. And part, more ominously, are old ideas of freedom and privacy: "For governments of all political stripes--from authoritarian regimes to liberal democracies--the Internet is a surveillance tool made in heaven, because much of the surveillance can be done, not by expensive and fallible human beings, but by computers." You are your clickstream, and therein, it must be noted, as Naughton does, lie Orwellian possibilities. Along the way, the author makes good points on the history of various Internet stalwarts, not least of them Facebook, and notes how the Internet defies some of the fundamental principles of economics, especially scarcity, since the Internet is an embarrassment of riches and too-muchness, if also an engine of decentralization. Most of this will come as no news to those familiar with, say, Malcolm Gladwell or Jaron Lanier, but Naughton's optimism and easily worn learning makes this a pleasure to read.

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December 1, 2013

The nature of the Internet is a difficult, slippery thing to define, but Naughton (senior research fellow, Ctr. for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences & Humanities, Univ. of Cambridge; A Brief History of the Future: The Origins of the Internet) makes it his goal to help readers better understand it. He describes how the Internet's infrastructure has given it a knack for creative disruption and why that's important for its future. Naughton effectively dispels confusion about the web and writes brief, accessible histories of technologies we currently enjoy, touching on the main points of topics more fully explored in books such as Andrew Keen's Digital Vertigo and Henry Jenkins's Spreadable Media. He ends with philosophical musings about the future of the Internet, underscoring issues such as privacy and security and how they may shape our use of the network. VERDICT This is a solid overview of Internet technology for those who use it but who don't feel that they comprehend it. Experts might not find much new information here, but the author's observations and analysis will give any reader a better grasp of the web's big picture.--Rachel Hoover, Thomas Ford Memorial Lib., Western Springs, IL

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2013
When the Gutenberg press was invented, around 1455, few people of the time would have predicted the profound disruptive effects it would have on culture, from undermining the authority of the Catholic Church to the democratization of learning and the rise of modern science. The Internet is a similarly disruptive technology, the results of which we cannot fully fathom or predict. Naughton, author of A Brief History of the Future (2000), is nevertheless willing to take a stab at the unpredictable. The network now is the computer (or cloud) that has become a vital part of everyday life, with implications not only for privacy and security but also how we relate and interact with the world. Naughton warns of two possible outcomes of our networked futures envisioned by the English writers George Orwell and Aldus Huxleyone a prison of our fears under the constant, watchful eye of Big Brother; the other in which our own sense of self gets lost in a sea of our own self-indulgence. Or perhaps we already occupy a space somewhere between these dystopian and utopian nightmares.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)