From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg

Our society has gone through a weird, unremarked transition: once a novelty, the Net is now something that we take for granted, like mains electricity or running water. In the process we've been surprisingly incurious about its significance or cultural implications. How has our society become dependent on a utility that it doesn't really understand?

John Naughton has distilled the noisy chatter surrounding the internet's relentless evolution into nine clear-sighted areas of understanding. In doing so he affords everyone the requisite knowledge to make better use of the technologies and networks around us, as well as highlighting some of their more disturbing implications.

“'An accessible guide to the Internet, which covers the nine need-to-know ideas about its cultural significance' Sunday Times.”

'A fantastic read and a marvel of economy ... This is the kind of primer you want to slide under your boss's door' Cory Doctorow, Observer. Cory Doctorow, Observer
Sunday Times

John Naughton is Professor of the Public Understanding of Technology at the Open University and a Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge. He is also the Observer's 'Networker' columnist and a prominent blogger at memex.naughtons.org. His last book was A Brief History of the Future: The Origins of the Internet.

Most of us take the Internet for granted, treating it as if it were electricity or running water. But we have little idea how it functions, and would find it hard to explain why it continues to have such a disruptive impact on almost every aspect of our lives. In From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg, John Naughton provides a clear-sighted account of the way in which the Net has evolved, as well as posting challenging questions about the effect its relentless development will have on all of us in the future.

Our society has gone through a weird, unremarked transition: once a novelty, the Net is now something that we take for granted, like mains electricity or running water. In the process we've been surprisingly incurious about its significance or cultural implications. How has our society become dependent on a utility that it doesn't really understand? John Naughton has distilled the noisy chatter surrounding the internet's relentless evolution into nine clear-sighted areas of understanding. In doing so he affords everyone the requisite knowledge to make better use of the technologies and networks around us, as well as highlighting some of their more disturbing implications.

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