Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet

Book Review by Jane
According to this book, the Internet didn’t just pop up overnight at Wal-Mart in 1995 as I suspected. Actually, before I read this book, all I knew was that the Internet started as collaboration between the government and universities in the 1960s. This book goes into the politics that actually preceded the Internet. I was interested to learn that the ARPA, Advanced Projects Research Agency, overlooked by the president and secretary of defense and from which the Internet sprang, actually began partially in answer to the Russian Sputnik satellite.

This book maps out what had to happen for the Internet to develop into what it was at the point this book was written in 1996. Many things needed to come together, including protocols, physical connections to computers, and software bugs needed to be worked out. The people involved in making the Internet a reality are also discussed.

There was apparently a reunion of responsible people back in 1994. No single person really can be credited for the Internet, because there are so many different aspects that actually hold the same amount of weight in whether the Internet would work. Each person involved in the Internet usually claims credit for a part, which either advanced the Internet or allowed for the connections in the first place. Al Gore is, by the way, mentioned in this book, and was invited to the reunion! Apparently, he made political efforts to advocate for the information superhighway in the early 1990s. And, it turns out, politics did play a role in the beginnings of the Internet. The Internet actually started with President Dwight Eisenhower’s forming of ARPA. Did Bill Gates have a lot to do with the Internet? Not really, and turned down his invitation to the party in 1994.

I never felt like I was getting enough information about the Internet in the classes I sat through in school or from the articles I’ve read. This book is an answer to the questions I had about the Internet. The technical language is rather light and explained.

Jane.