_Dream Machine_ in particular tied together many strands that I had previously explored separately; it's a far-ranging, incredibly well-researched work that covers the development of interactive (and, eventually, personal & networked) computing from its origins at MIT's Whirlwind and Lincoln projects, leading, in big part thanks to J.C.R. Licklider's long-term research (management) vision, to the development of the ARPANET, and, maybe even more importantly, the formation of an "ARPA community", where many of the big ideas were first brought to reality and explored in depth (at BBN, SRI, Utah, PARC &c.).
All in all, it's probably the best history of computing-as-we-know-it-today and a clear recommendation for anyone with just the slightest interest in the idea history of the field.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Dream-Machine-Licklider-Revolution...
_Computing in the Middle Ages_ is a very personal account, supplying the critically important perspective of someone actually working in the trenches in the time-frame covered by _Dream Machine_.
Severo Ornstein co-designed the ARPANET "Interface Message Processors", essentially the first routers. It's also a wonderful history of the LINC (by Wesley Clark et al.), a remarkable (and remarkably forgotten) machine and the direct philosophical fore-runner of all "personal computers".
http://www.amazon.com/Computing-Middle-Ages-Trenches-1955-19...
The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood http://www.amazon.com/The-Information-History-Theory-Flood/d...
Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe http://www.amazon.com/Turings-Cathedral-Origins-Digital-Univ...
Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future: The Ingenious Ideas That Drive Today's Computers http://www.amazon.com/Nine-Algorithms-That-Changed-Future/dp...
Jon Gernter's 'The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation' - very cool story about the formation of Bell Labs and covers the Transistor, Satellite comms, the laser, and a ton of other stuff up till, but not disappointingly not including Unix.
John Markoff's 'What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry' - what is says!
Ted Nelson's 'Geeks Bearing Gifts' (or any of his YouTube Computers For Cynics videos) - awesome, curmudgeonly alternative (but accurate) version of computer history.
Michael A. Hiltzik's 'Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age' - as someone else mentioned, really great history
It is a great book written by one of the great computer scientists of our time. It tracks the evolution of code and computing from morse code and braille on to number systems, early processors and even into how processors handle this information. When I hire someone for nearly any position, I buy them this book.
*Don't let the title fool you, this is not some discussion about high level languages, this is the down and dirty stuff.
http://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Softwa...
The topic of his essay was: what should scientists do for the benefit of society now that the war is over?
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-ma...
Ted Talk: "Jeff Bezos: The electricity metaphor for the web's future" http://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_bezos_on_the_next_web_innovati...
First one up is Command and Control - which is a history of american nuclear weapons/nuclear weapon accidents. It spends most of its time building a narrative around a single major incident but the meaty sections are all about how the technology was invented and deployed and it's a gripping read.
Second one - just wrapping it up now - is The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, which is a history of the shipping container. It sorta reads mostly as a pop econ/biz biography of Malcom McLean but it's really about the power of technology to reshape how we live.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/281818.Where_Wizards_Stay...
pg's suggestion is probably a little different--pick a subject that holds your intererest rather than slogging through the entire history (there are also a couple of technology-specific history books here): http://www.paulgraham.com/raq.html
A very comprehensive view an lots of great stories in James Gleick's _The Information_: http://www.amazon.com/Information-History-Theory-Flood/dp/14...
You may also be interested in the forces in society which make technological progress possible — and which kill it. Mariana Mazzucato wrote _The Entrepreneurial State_. David F. Noble wrote a couple books.
Also anthropologist David Graeber's essay _Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit_ (http://www.thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars) ; you may prefer his talk "On Bureaucratic Technologies & the Future as Dream-Time" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QgSJkk1tng). His video makes the interesting point that since the 1970's, we've focussed on bureaucratic technologies like IT (we fill out forms on the net all day), instead of more imaginative technologies. To compensate, we're good at merely simulating imaginative technologies, like in movies.
A great look at the people involved in the early years of personal computing, including Stallman, Gates, Wozniak, etc. Apart from the technology, Levy discusses the basic philosophy and motivations of the personalities involved.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Got-Here-Irreverent-Technology/dp/...
"How We Got Here: A Slightly Irreverent History of Technology and Markets" by Andy Kessler
"Expanding on themes first raised in his tour de force, Running Money, Andy Kessler unpacks the entire history of Silicon Valley and Wall Street, from the Industrial Revolution to computers, communications, money, gold and stock markets. These stories cut (by an unscrupulous editor) from the original manuscript were intended as a primer on the ways in which new technologies develop from unprofitable curiosities to essential investments. Indeed, How We Got Here is the book Kessler wishes someone had handed him on his first day as a freshman engineering student at Cornell or on the day he started on Wall Street. This book connects the dots through history to how we got to where we are today."
weaving the web by berners-lee 006251587X
the master switch - tim wu
the soul of a new machine - tracy kidder 9780316491976
dealers of lightning
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Engineers-Scientists-Iconoclasts---Pro...
Mokyr's books aren't exactly about the history of technology: they're at the intersection of economics, technology, and politics.
Another good choice: Steven Berlin Johnson's Where Good Ideas Come From.
Atomic Awakening by James Mahaffey
and
Atomic by Jim Baggott
It's of course only one technology, but a technology from which very broad uses have sprung.
It's important to know how far in advance stuff in research labs can be from everyday life. The trappings of the computerized office of the mid 90's were bouncing around Xerox PARC in the 70's.
http://www.amazon.com/In-Search-Stupidity-Marketing-Disaster...
http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_kelly_tells_technology_s_epic...
Kurzweil also talks about history of technology when he talks about accelerating returns.
It's useful to think way back imho... for example, language is a very early example of a technology.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Universal-Computer-Leibniz-Turing/...
[ During WW2, silicon valley was a hotbed of ]
[ research in radio and sensing technology. ]
[ It's longish but an interesting history lesson. ]
"The Chip" http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0375758283
Also, Walter Issacson is working on a new book on the history of the internet
The Unbound Prometheus --- a history of eastern europe technology and its social impacts.
From The American System to Mass Production --- Hounshell, a history of the development of the assembly line, and in particular the forerunners to Ford's mythologized mass production line (which, in many elements, surpassed it, and demonstrate that it was not particularly unique except in marketing)
America By Design --- Noble is a very circumspect, controversial historian of technology.
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism --- classic on the controversial idea that protestantism was responsible for capitalism and the resulting technology
Does Technology Drive History -- collection of essays by the founders of the field of science, technology, and society.
Civilizing the Machine --- technology's interaction with American values and how those developed concurrently.
Major Problems in the History of American Technology --- a collection of original documents and essays interpreting them in a historical basis, ed. by a founder of the field.
The Tentacles of Progress --- how technology lends itself to imperialism, and furthers exploitation, even when other nations fund the development of infrastructure in developing nations.
The Machine in the Garden --- possibly the single most important book on this list, the one that turned my life upside down and which I think about most regularly. It posits that America's idyll of a tech-free natural scene is actually a balance of technology and nature, and is a artificial nature propped up by machine, and demonstrates this history of this tension in American life from Shakespeare to Jefferson to Thoreau to the modern day. It completely turned my conception of the perfect life upsidedown.
Digital Apollo --- a history of the computing history of the Apollo program, especially the tensions in the software development sides between good management and perfect programs.
Science and Corporate Strategy, DuPont R&D 1902-1982 --- if you're interested in the development of big chem, or in the history of companies having R&D departments, this is the book for you. The DuPonts were very well-educated, many being MIT alums, and the chemical company they built was innovative in many different ways --- this book is a interesting discussion of the society and the technological pressures that drove and still drive innovation.