How we evolved to the Internet as we know it today — we all know bits and parts of it. Some think that Tim Berners-Lee from WWW started the Internet, others say ARPANET, the military communication network during the Cold War made the Internet happen. In fact, there is a lot more to tell!

The book entitled From Counterculture to cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism, written by Fred Turner explains in great detail and in a fascinating story-telling voice how our networked culture emerged as we know it today. Networking on a cultural, political, social and economic level.

Book Info

• From Counterculture to cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism

• Written by Fred Turner, published by The University of Chicago Press
  ISBN-13: 978-0-226-81741-5 or ISBN-10: 0-226-81741-5. 450 pages
• Order? From Amazon UK | Amazon US
• Official book site: chicago university press

Summary

In the first chapter Shifting Politics in the computational metaphor we see how the emerging coldwar and military defense system was in need for a new intelligence and communication system. Scientists from croos-boundary fields worked together, and later in the sixties new politic movements like the new Communalists saw this technology as a new way to spread politcs and enforce ideals.

For the new Communalists, the key to social change was not politcs , but mind.

Turner asks why a social movement that critiqued cold war bureaucracy, later on embraced technology (later the Internet) from that same bureaucracy?

From the second chapter on we follow Stewart Brand and the history of the Whole Earth Network (catalogue) to answer these questions. The WELL co-founded by Stewart Brand is one of the first online communities to establish itself on the Net. The whole idea was to create collaborating communities that would exchange info, and read what others had to share. Wired, the inmense well-known online magazine that came up in the beginning of the 90s was a magazine thriving on these very same principles.

Criticism

Simply one of the best books I read. There is only good to say about this book. It is an accomplishment to tell such a fascinating story with so many details — it is like you are there. (at least Turner really was).

Who should read the book

Anyone interested in a fascinating story about socio-technical visions that blossomed and faded away.
The networking culture of the Internet is very much today, what this book in great detail examined from a not so faraway past.

Sidenote

• Organize ad hoc
• Authority distributed
• Organization levelled

Funny but that is just how the authors here over Fadtastic work as well. We are no real journalists but we are conveners of interesting ideas. The comment section on Fadtastic breaks down the barriers between writer and readers. We are real-world professional people and not just academics. And the system works!

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