Published: A New History of Modern Computing

Big news: MIT Press has published A New History of Modern Computing, my collaboration with Paul Ceruzzi to produce a replacement for his classic A History of Modern Computing (1998).The book is ambitious, comprehensive, reliable and full of nice pictures. There's a hefty format that makes details legible, but the price ($40 list for paper, $30 for kindle) is reasonable. The narrative is less US-centric than previous overview histories, and we find ways to engage with the social aspects of computer use, including an apocalyptic present that seems to have finally extinguished techno-utopianism. It's not perfect, but if you believe there's value in a grand narrative of computer history that takes technology seriously you will not find a better one.

The new book incorporates a lot of material from the old one but has an entirely different structure. It deepens discussion of existing topics, drawing on new scholarship from the past twenty years, while adding in-depth coverage of topics neglected in previous overview histories such as communications, video games, digital media, smartphones, cloud computing, home computers, and operating systems. Gerado Con Diaz blurbed it as follows: "A New History of Modern Computing is an instant classic—essential to historians, curators, and interdisciplinary scholars in information and media studies. Its integrated analysis of usage and technological change is an impressive feat and a real joy to read." Paul Edwards called it "indispensable" and Valérie Schafer called it "a must-read." A Chinese translation is already underway.

Our biggest contribution is to reconceptualize the history of electronic computing as a series of transitions, in which particular groups of users remake the computer to fit their needs. In each chapter the computer becomes something new, such as a scientific supertool, a real-time control system, a communications medium, or a publishing platform. This lets us integrate discussion of users, applications, hardware, and software into a succession of intertwined stories which, cumulatively, add up to an explanation of why and how the computer became a universal machine.