This book gives you the complete story behind the conception and birth of the internet. The story focuses on the work done by BBN to pioneer and develop all of the protocols and designs that are the internet. The book does a good job of laying the foundation of where the state of computing was when these initial developments were being made and what outside social and economic trends effected and encouraged the internet's development. The authors do a very good job of focusing on the personalities, anecdotes and larger issues without getting bogged down in minutiae. At 265 pages, the book is packed and makes for a very quick read. The writing style of Ms. Hafner and Mr. Lyon is outstanding, which greatly increases the quality of the book.

There are some very interesting aspects of the development that are related. I was very interested in the origins of BBN, their background in acoustics, and the zeal with which they pursued the original DARPA contract. Of equal interest was the method in which the teams were managed, and the way that the development was not pursued with large teams and brute force, but rather with smaller teams that were headed by the best possible people and given all of the resources that they needed. The creation of the internet is an awe-inspiring event, and the text offers several subtle management lessons that are too important to be overlooked. The book also does a splendid job of showing some of the theory that was used in the development of the necessary software and how the developers did such a good job of bridging theory and practical engineering development. In this light the book does a much better job discussing theory than two other recent books on the history of the Computer, "Engines of the Mind" by Shurkin and "Computer" by Campbell-Kelly and Aspray. These are just some of the interesting stories told, the whole text is packed cover to cover with similar stories.

I highly recommend this book.

I recently finished this book and "Engines of the Mind : The Evolution of the Computer from Mainframes to Microprocessors" by Joel N. Shurkin. Both are attempts at writing a detailed history of the development of the computer and the events surrounding it, and I must admit that I found "Computer" much more entertaining than Shurkin's text.

The difference between the two books is very slight, however, it is significant. "Computer" walks us through the work of Charles Babbage and carries us through the backrooms of large businesses at the turn of the 19th century. The authors discuss the work and lives of the people that were the first 'computers' working all day long to finish calculations that were used in business, and then for the calculation of artillery tables in the world wars. It was the replacement of these workers and their omissive errors and necessarily slow speed and development time that drove the development of the huge mainframes that would be developed by the military. The authors do a great job of walking through the history of the early computer companies, especially Hollerith's Tabulating Machine Co., now IBM, and National Cash Register. The role that these two companies played in increasing the public's reliance and trust in machines was a key enabler of the computer revolution. The authors then take us through to modern times and we follow the ultra-competitive computer industry through wave after wave of consolidation and rapid technological innovation. This book also shows us a slight glimpse of the business forces behind the development of the transistor, and how this invention would wind up changing the world.

I could not have enjoyed this book more. Of the two, it definitely did the best job of focusing on the industry and economic changes that have led us to the modern computer age. The annecdotes and writing style of the authors is well-suited to the material and I very highly recommend this book. I also recommend the other book as well - I believe that if read together (with some time to digest in between them) they do a great job of painting the picture of a fascinating development of one of the most important technological changes in the history of man.

This is a review of the Abridged Audio CD, read by George Hearn. I very much enjoyed the book, and would give it a rating of 4 stars, however the abridgement and the narrator would rank 2 stars, giving this work an average of 3 stars.

I very much enjoyed the subject matter, Shaara writes "Gone for Soldiers" as a prequel to the Civil War based on the Mexican American War. As usual, he does a great job of putting us behind the eyes of key players in the action. Much more than his other books, Robert E. Lee is clearly the featured protagonist (he comes close to this status in the other books). We watch as Lee gets his first real taste of battle, how he views the delicate political intricacies of General Winfield Scott's command and starts to understand how to translate his Westpoint and engineering background into tactics that are capable of winning the war. I just read "Personal Memoirs" by former President, Union General and participant in the Mexican American War Ulysses S. Grant, and Grant clearly expresses that the foundation of the Civil War was laid by this very war. Mr. Shaara's development of this thesis is very lively and as always he does a great job of telling the story from many vantage points.

While the subject matter was outstanding, the abridgement and narration were a bit disappointing. I do not think that I could listen to Mr. Hearn read through an unabridged copy, nor would I want to listen to his reading of other books in the series. His voice is mostly fine, but his standard tone and the highly repetitious text became somewhat comical by the end of my listening. I think that this could well be the fault of the abridgement job (which could also explain Lee's prominence), as the story does not flow very well, and it seems that time and time again the author uses the same method of introduction and phrasing. It was just a little too much.

I liked the context of this book, and the Audio CD was good, just not great. I recommend it, but would not recommend the unabridged text, or trying to listen to more than one of these readings in sequence.

"The Last Full Measure" has a much more difficult task to undertake than did the original book in the series, "The Killer Angels" by Mr. Shaara's father, Michael Shaara. This book covers the Civil War from the close of the battle at Gettysburg until shortly after the surrender of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, some 3 years, whereas "The Killer Angels" covered only a period of 4 days. Nonetheless, the author does an outstanding job of taking us into the heads of the major players in the war, and as always, does a particularly outstanding job with Confederate General Robert E. Lee. As in his other books, the author writes from the viewpoints of several of the critical individuals who were around at this point in the War.

I read this book after having read "Personal Memoirs" of Union General and former President Ulysses S. Grant, and was somewhat concerned that the sections written from Grant's point of view would be redundant. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were not, and in the end these were some of my favorite parts of the text. It is amazing how informative this book is, and how much effort the author makes to accurately portray the characters and educate the reader about the many interesting aspects of the war. I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of the Second Battle of the Wilderness, the description of the earthworks and the men who guarded them around Richmond and Petersburg, VA and the fast-paced action that led to Lee's ultimate surrender.

This is a very well-written conclusion to this series. The author covers a lot of ground, but manages to not overwhelm the reader and keep them very engaged. I highly recommend this book.

I had never been a fan of the Civil War, and picked up Mr. Shaara's book only after it was repeatedly suggested as an excellent piece of literature. This book has completely changed my view of the Civil War and my interest in historical fiction. I couldn't put it down, and finished it in two days.

The book is a fast-paced account of the 4 days of battle at Gettysburg. Mr. Shaara wrote the book based as accurately as he could from the accounts of those who were there, doing so in the first person primarily through 4 of the commanding generals. It is Mr. Shaara's understanding of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that is the most impressive, he seems to do an excellent job in letting us glimpse how this now highly revered General looked at the war. Another lead character is Union Col. Joshua Chamberlain, a fascinating introduction as Chamberlain had been a professor at Bowdoin University with no military experience. His perspective on the war is vastly different from Lee's, allowing him to function as a well-written foil to Lee's perspective as a career military man. Chamberlain's unit was key to holding the Union flank and their ultimate success in this most devastating of battles.

This book was so good that I have gone on to read/listen to multiple other books on the Civil War, including all of the books by Jeff Shaara, the author's son. This however, has been the clear best of the bunch. I cannot recommend the book enough, it is absolutely riveting.

I recently read this book and "Computer : A History of the Information Machine" (The Sloan Technology Series) by Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray(Contributor). Between the two books you get a fairly thorough treatment of the events that led to the modern computer and the historical development of these machines. "Engines of the Mind" is much more focused on the people that are behind the story, and less focused on the businesses and theory of computing that those individuals helped advance.

Mr. Shurkin starts his novel at the beginning, quite literally, walking through early usage of numbers and counting through the development of modern numbers. Anyone familiar with early history will recognize the tale, although some interesting insights are provided. He then walks us through a fairly detailed treatment of Charles Babbage, and even describes fairly well the theory behind the development of his Difference Engine. We are then walked through the development of punch card machines to aid the US in post Civil War censuses, which leads to Hollerith's founding Tabulating Machine Co. which would become IBM. Shurkin focuses on the individuals that developed these main frames, so we then spend some time on ENIAC and its many offspring. Here the author starts to diverge into a somewhat personal discussion of who was the "real" founder of the mainframe, and thus the computer. The author does a good job of saying he does not believe Von Neumann's claims to be this father, and that Atanasoff's claims appear fictitious as well. Regardless of who 'wins' this argument, it would have been nice to know more of the author's own background in order to understand whether or how he was biased. The book wraps up with the development of Microsoft and Apple, but again focuses more on the backgrounds of their charasmatic leaders rather than the business forces that led those companies to their prominence.

The story is told logically and does a good job of letting the reader peek at the character of those people who were instrumental in the development of the computer. However, it would have been nice to see more of the overall environment in which these decisions were made. I believe that this book, combined with Campbell-Kelly and Aspray's book do a good job of telling the whole story regarding the development of the PC (neither focus much on theory), it would be wrong to read just one of them. I recommend this book, however, I would read the other text first.

I really enjoyed Mr. Perkins' theme and thoughts in this book. He did a good job of breaking down how he looks at breakthrough thinking, and outlining a good methodology for overcoming seemingly unsolvable problems. These theories are then demonstrated through several fairly quickly worked through puzzles that demonstrate how to make use of these problem solving techniques. The books is written in a fairly standard format, with the introduction outlining the 'big picture' and subsequent chapters breaking out details of Mr. Perkins problem solving approach in more detail.

I did have some concerns about the book, the most notable being its repetitious nature. It almost seems as if the author has written a guide to teaching one's self this methodology rather than a book designed to explore the subject in depth. I believe that the author could wrap up his thesis and explain the methodology in probably 1/2 of the space that he has chosen, however, instead he has stretched out the context to fill some 260 pages.

There were two academic areas that I had hoped to see a bit more of. The first was the author's brief review of the similarity in break through thinking with evolution, specifically with the theory of "punctuated equilibrium" which has long been put forth by the author's fellow Harvard Professor Mr. Stephen Jay Gould. Mr. Perkins throws out the similarity as well as a couple of other thoughts on the matter, but never really crystalizes a thesis. One would have hoped that the two professors proximity would have allowed a more mature discussion. The second, which I had hoped would have been developed, was the oddly parallel development of most of the world's major inventions. The printing press of Gutenberg and the heavier-than-aircraft of the Wright brothers were both developed amidst furious competition, as if the time of development for these inventions had finally been "right". It seems as if somewhere in this history there would be a logical point for Mr. Perkins to have developed.

Again, I liked this book, but would have hoped for some more tangible support of his theories, either through experimental results or more first-hand interpretation of historical events. Where Mr. Perkins touches on the subject he does so with a very light brush stroke, and in doing so decreases the potency of what is otherwise an interesting piece of work.

I purchased this book, "Introduction to Fiber Optics" by Crisp and "Understanding Fiber Optics" by Hecht to get up to speed on the technology. I work in finance, and am not an engineer. I found this book to be the most clear of the three, and by far the easiest to understand. This book had better diagrams and used better analogies to explain the technology than did the other two books.

The book was laid out logically, and did a good job of building on knowledge explained in previous chapters. There were one page summaries at the tale of each chapter, which were helpful in allowing you to either skip or skim the text. The glossary at the end of the book was especially useful, as was the end chapter on future trends within the industry. The book was a quick read, and once I had finished it I felt comfortable engaging in a discussion with people much more accomplished in the field than myself.

Lowenstein follows in a proud history of Wall Street Journal reporters that have written outstanding books about current events, such as "Den of Thieves" by Stewart and "Barbarians at the Gate" by Burrough and Heylar. Lowenstein walks us through the development of Long Term Capital management at the hands of "Liar's Poker" star John Merriweather. Merriweather and his band of academic, bond-trading proteges raised the mother of all funds in LTCM, dedicated to making massive bets, the majority of which were related to convergence amongst various interest rate spreads.

Merriweather and his gang go on to do quite well (all the while we hear the Jaws-like music playing in the background), in fact they do a little too well. At one point they forcibly return money to investors - it is, of course, after this that things start to go tragically wrong. There are wonderful descriptions and backgrounds of the key characters involved along the way, which adds to the reader's desire to know just how things wind up. The fund continues to lose all of its holdings, and as things start to go bad, they continue to get worse and worse. Now it is no longer just the markets conspiring against LTCM, but also the growing number of bankers who learn of LTCM's positions, and knowing that due to their size LTCM's exit of those positions would ruin markets. Everything that could go wrong does, and eventually we are left with the aftermath, the fund being bailed out through the behind the scenes maneuvering of the New York Fed.

The book does lack a couple of items, (i) there is little to no in depth discussion of the trading techniques used by LTCM, (ii) there isn't really any 'insiders' view of the behind the scenes maneuvering going on at the fund through the fall, and finally (iii) there isn't a real sense of finality at the end of the book.

All in all this is a well written book about an interesting point in the financial history of the US, as there are few other major incidents that don't involve some kind of criminal misdeeds. Rather, what we see here is the sheer error of man's hubris and seeming belief that a resounding knowledge of the past would allow LTCM to be victorious no matter what the future lay before it. I believe that this book will grow more interesting with every revision and addition to the epilogue. I recommend the text, but I do look forward to reading "Inventing Money" by Dunbar, which supposedly is a bit more detailed when reviewing the actual trading techniques that LTCM was was built on.

Overall, I believe that most Wiley Investment Classics fall into two different categories, books that are indispensable and fascinating reads, and books that are to be purchased, suffered through as long as possible, and then placed on the shelf for display. "Where the Money Grows" belongs in a third cateogry with "Where are the Customer's Yachts" by Schwed - this is a fantastic quick read with some very pointed insight on Wall Street.

This book is best if you actually work in investment banking, and are not an investor looking for financial wisdom. There are some great chapters on the types of people that you run into in the investment banking world, most of which are recognizable to anyone. The chapter on "Wall Street Habits" is a great commentary on the self-prescribed routines of most people in finance. These words still ring true some 70 years after they were first written. Other chapters on "The Hoodoo" about the bad luck deal guy that everybody in banking knows at least one of, are very pointed. Everybody knows the guy that just can't close anything, regardless of how they are involved. I also enjoyed Chapter 8, "The Invisibles," good for anybody who ever wondered who "they" are, as well as Chapter 11, "Taking Trouble Home" which brilliantly illustrates how people often removed from the market are able to see it with greater clarity.

This is a good little book - I recommend reading it.