Book Review: The Innovators by Walter Isaacson
http://books.simonandschuster.com/The-Innovators/Walter-Isaacson/9781476708706
This book is a must read for all technologists and I highly recommend it. A great refresher on computing innovations starting from Lord Byron with the mechanical general purpose computer and Ada Lovelace with her work on the analytical engine in the 19th century. Walter Isaacson provides great insight into some not so well known facts of computing history including Vannevar Bush’s Differential Analyzer as well as the great rush to build the first electronic general purpose computer by John Vincent Atanasoff only to be beaten to it by John Mauchly along with J. Presper Eckert. Walter Isaacson also provides inspiring history of women pioneers of programming including Grace Hopper at Harvard on the Mark 1 and Jean Jennings on the ENIAC. There is the obvious description of history of Bell Labs greats William Shockley along with John Bardeen and Walter Brattain who built the semiconductor followed by the competition to build the first microchip between Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments versus Roberty Noyce, Gordon Moore and Andy Grove at Fairchild Semiconductor. Later on, Walter Isaacson describes in great detail on how the internet came about with details on J.C.R Licklider, Bob Taylor and Larry Roberts’s contribution to ARPANET. There are good details about the history of packet switching with notes on contributions of Paul Baran, Donald Davies and Leonard Kleinrock. Moving ahead, there is the history of Personal computer with details on contributions of Steward Brand, Douglas Engelbart, Alan Kay, Ed Roberts, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. Then there are details of some well known pieces of history of operating systems and software with contributions of Paul Allen, Bill Gates and Linus Trovalds. Finally, moving on to the modern age of computing there is the history of the Web with contributions of Tim Berners Lee, Marc Anderson, Justin Hall, Howard Rheingold, Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
A very important theme across the book that is that all these great innovations are really built on top of one another and there was not a single invention that was brought about in isolation.Above all Walter Isaacson’s story telling is extremely engaging and you won’t feel any part of the 542 page book a drag.
There is one small critique that I have on the book which is that I wish Walter Isaacson had provided more details of the modern computing era and also had talked about Web 2.0, Social Network, Smartphone among others. Perhaps he has left that for Part II of The Innovators!!
This book is a must read for all technologists and I highly recommend it. A great refresher on computing innovations starting from Lord Byron with the mechanical general purpose computer and Ada Lovelace with her work on the analytical engine in the 19th century. Walter Isaacson provides great insight into some not so well known facts of computing history including Vannevar Bush’s Differential Analyzer as well as the great rush to build the first electronic general purpose computer by John Vincent Atanasoff only to be beaten to it by John Mauchly along with J. Presper Eckert. Walter Isaacson also provides inspiring history of women pioneers of programming including Grace Hopper at Harvard on the Mark 1 and Jean Jennings on the ENIAC. There is the obvious description of history of Bell Labs greats William Shockley along with John Bardeen and Walter Brattain who built the semiconductor followed by the competition to build the first microchip between Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments versus Roberty Noyce, Gordon Moore and Andy Grove at Fairchild Semiconductor. Later on, Walter Isaacson describes in great detail on how the internet came about with details on J.C.R Licklider, Bob Taylor and Larry Roberts’s contribution to ARPANET. There are good details about the history of packet switching with notes on contributions of Paul Baran, Donald Davies and Leonard Kleinrock. Moving ahead, there is the history of Personal computer with details on contributions of Steward Brand, Douglas Engelbart, Alan Kay, Ed Roberts, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. Then there are details of some well known pieces of history of operating systems and software with contributions of Paul Allen, Bill Gates and Linus Trovalds. Finally, moving on to the modern age of computing there is the history of the Web with contributions of Tim Berners Lee, Marc Anderson, Justin Hall, Howard Rheingold, Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
A very important theme across the book that is that all these great innovations are really built on top of one another and there was not a single invention that was brought about in isolation.Above all Walter Isaacson’s story telling is extremely engaging and you won’t feel any part of the 542 page book a drag.
There is one small critique that I have on the book which is that I wish Walter Isaacson had provided more details of the modern computing era and also had talked about Web 2.0, Social Network, Smartphone among others. Perhaps he has left that for Part II of The Innovators!!
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