1. The Soviet internet is a sideways allegory for the present. The Soviet Union, once we work through its parade of horribles, helps separate us from and then rethink our current network values. General secretaries, whether state or corporate, have long been trying to privatize our information.
2. The reasons the Soviets did not develop a network are not the reasons we often like to think: it's not because networks are anathema to censorship and control structures (think cybersecurity and dictatorships today), it's not because of technological backwardness (que Soviet military networks since the mid 1950s), it's not exactly because their genuinely screwed up command economy was either too rigid or hierarchical (que the rest of the book).
3. The Soviet story is a tragedy of big science and state support gone wrong, as well as a cautionary tale for how we go about building the network future in those terms.
And a link dump: enjoy!
Review by David Strom
http://blog.strom.com/wp/?p=5287
Review by Michael Gordin in Nature
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v532/n7600/full/532438a...
Podcast segment with Kerri Smith (starts at 6:50) in Nature
http://www.nature.com/nature/podcast/index-2016-04-28.html
Conversation in The Atlantic.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/04/us-res...