I just finished The Innovators by Walter Isaacson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovators_(book)), definitely more on the pop side of things but found it interesting and introduced me to people and topics I was able to research further on my own.
Probably the most personally influential history of technology book I've read is Paul Rabinow's "Making PCR." It deals with issues around the path dependence of technology and how new technologies often arise from repurposing existing technologies.
Not really about history of technology as a whole but the book Computing in the Middle Ages was really fascinating. Made me realize that lots of the challenges software engineers face are much older than we assume.
Check out Computer Wars by Ferguson for probably a better version of that.
The Ferguson book sent me down a lot of historical rabbit holes that didn't have wikipedia pages yet and I had to pull up things on like newspapers.com or archive.org to find out more information.
Here are some histories of specific industries I've read recently and supremely enjoyed:
- The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
- The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production-- Toyota's Secret Weapon in the Global Car Wars That Is Now Revolutionizing World Industry
- Empires of the Sky: Zeppelins, Airplanes, and Two Men's Epic Duel to Rule the World
- Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America (of all of these not the most amazing but still interesting)
- The Arms of Krupp: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Dynasty that Armed Germany at War
And then you can learn a lot by reading about the people who built the industries too. Here are a few I've been reading about recently that I recommend:
- Edison by Edmund Morris (Just read it backwards, you'll see.)
- Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow
- The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century by Steven Watts
- Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler
I also got some interesting suggestions asking a similar question on Twitter a bit ago.
Have you looked for online courses? Here are a few of the books I'd go through around computers, but are you thinking more extensive history of "technology?" Like how we've grown from printing press as innovation?
+1 for "The Information".
i can here specifically to recommend this book. Such a great read, i would even venture are saying a must read for anybody even remotely interested in computer science.
I came here to second this book by Simon Winchester, "The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World". Winchester has written may attention-worthy books.
Not sure if this is what you're interested in, but a friend recently recommended reading these two in tandem:
"The Image" by David Boorstin, and "Palo Alto" by Malcom Harris
Both offer views on the evolution of technology, but from authors with somewhat opposing viewpoints.
"The Image" is particularly interesting to read today, because it was written in 1962, with the advent of TV, and back then one of the core concerns was edited video and how it was becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate fact from fiction.
Interesting overlap with some of the concerns around LLMs
65 comments
[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 108 ms ] threadhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/722412.The_Dream_Machine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers:_Heroes_of_the_Compute...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12625589-turing-s-cathed...
https://openlibrary.org/books/OL27198205M/Fire_in_the_valley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Idea_Factory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technics_and_Civilization
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Machine
Not a book, but the old Connections series is really wonderful for broad overviews along a narrow band. I wish there were more things that took a similar approach - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(British_TV_series...
2. The Nature of Technology by Brian Arthur
3. (Not a book but documentary) Connections by James Burk
4. Books by James Burk [0]
[0]: https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/james--burke/215445/
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo361492...
https://www.amazon.com/Computing-Middle-Ages-Trenches-1955-1...
https://www.amazon.com/How-Internet-Happened-Netscape-iPhone...
Where Wizards Stay Up Late - on the creation of the Internet
The Soul of a New Machine - On computing in the 70's and 80's
The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison - On the rise of Oracle (also has the best title)
Masters of Doom - A history of id Software
What The Dormouse Said - How the 60's counterculture influenced computing
The New New Thing - Follows Jim Clark around while he creates SGI, Netscape, etc...
The Ferguson book sent me down a lot of historical rabbit holes that didn't have wikipedia pages yet and I had to pull up things on like newspapers.com or archive.org to find out more information.
No shade on Cringley though, it's a fine book.
- The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
- The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production-- Toyota's Secret Weapon in the Global Car Wars That Is Now Revolutionizing World Industry
- Empires of the Sky: Zeppelins, Airplanes, and Two Men's Epic Duel to Rule the World
- Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America (of all of these not the most amazing but still interesting)
- The Arms of Krupp: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Dynasty that Armed Germany at War
And then you can learn a lot by reading about the people who built the industries too. Here are a few I've been reading about recently that I recommend:
- Edison by Edmund Morris (Just read it backwards, you'll see.)
- Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow
- The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century by Steven Watts
- Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler
I also got some interesting suggestions asking a similar question on Twitter a bit ago.
https://twitter.com/eatonphil/status/1668625835350454273
What do you think of the Novum Organum by Sir Francis Bacon, who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I?
https://libquotes.com/francis-bacon/quote/lbz2z1a
Soul of a New Machine is a great non-fiction but reads like a fiction account of trying to overtake the Vax by building one of the first 32-bit machines https://www.amazon.com/Soul-New-Machine-Tracy-Kidder/dp/0316...
A Biography of the Pixel https://www.amazon.com/Biography-Pixel-Leonardo-Alvy-Smith/d... great overview of the innovation and math that pushed graphics forwrard
The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood https://www.amazon.com/Information-History-Theory-Flood/dp/1... walks through information theory and how we got to the internet
Dealers of lightning: https://www.amazon.com/Dealers-of-Lightning-audiobook/dp/B00... how a lot of modenr computing grew out of Xerox
https://www.amazon.com/Perfectionists-Precision-Engineers-Cr...
"The Image" by David Boorstin, and "Palo Alto" by Malcom Harris
Both offer views on the evolution of technology, but from authors with somewhat opposing viewpoints.
"The Image" is particularly interesting to read today, because it was written in 1962, with the advent of TV, and back then one of the core concerns was edited video and how it was becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate fact from fiction.
Interesting overlap with some of the concerns around LLMs
https://a.co/d/epMV64I
* Electricity in the 17th and 18th Centuries A Study of Early Modern Physics (1979) https://archive.org/details/electricityin17t0000heil
* Early electrical communication (1964) https://archive.org/details/earlyelectricalc0000marl
* Bibliographical history Of Electricity And Magnetism (1922) https://archive.org/details/bibliographicalh033138mbp/page/n...
^ This is still one of the best.
* Electric Science Its History, Phenomena, and Applications (1853) https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_Lks1AAAAMAAJ
* The History and Present State of Electricity (1769) https://archive.org/details/historyandprese00priegoog