From the comfort of our living rooms we can fill our pantries with groceries, file our taxes, watch amateur videos of someone's talented cat in Norway, and befriend strangers around the world who share our esoteric interests - all thanks to the Internet, an invention so improbable that if it weren't a fact of daily life, it would seem pure science fiction. Nevertheless, whether the Internet is bringing us closer together as a global community or making it possible for us to have lives devoid of direct human contact, there is no question that it has redefined the workplace, politics and social life. In A History of the Internet, Johnny Ryan explores the development of the internet from its invention in the 1960s to its modern-day success. He charts its growth, focusing on the false technological leads of the 1970s and the way the internet revolutionized political campaigns in the 1990s, as well as the 'dot com' bust and the rise of social networking. He also analyzes the impact of the Internet on the balance of power between the state and the individual, and the conflicts it has generated related to censorship, copyright infringement and intellectual freedom. In A History of the Internet, Ryan presents a fascinating and accessible history of this revolutionary technology and explores its impact on the role of the individual within this networked world. Though we have so quickly come to take the ubiquity of the internet for granted - from our laptops to our smart phones, we are always connected - this book celebrates just how fantastic and innovative the invention truly was and still is.

About the Author

Johnny Ryan is Senior Researcher at the Institute of International and European Affairs, Dublin, where he leads the Digital Future programme.

Reviews

'Both an enormously useful work and a great read. Read it and understand what has made the Internet different.'- Professor Tim Wu, Columbia Law School 'Thanks to the proliferation of cloud services, ubiquitous, low-cost bandwidth, and new devices like smartphones and the iPad, there are fewer obstacles to innovation than ever before. In the next decade, the 'office' need not be much more than an Internet connection. Johnny Ryan takes us through the history of the Internet to demonstrate how it has changed everything. But that's not all; he also identifies what's to come in the future. We are in a new era of transformation that has been powered by the Internet. Understanding the trends driving this revolution is pivotal to success. Consider this book your road map to getting there.' - Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO of www.salesforce.com 'Johnny Ryan has admirably captured the sweep of the Internet's development from its earliest days, showing us how its profound impact is in part an accident of history, a phenomenon whose most interesting and liberating aspects could fade without reinforcement of its core values.' - Professor Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School and Kennedy School; Professor of Computer Science, Harvard SEAS; Author, The Future of the Internet - And How to Stop It