{"schema_version":"bf_book_companion_v1","release_id":"20261010T034321Z-reviewed-full-unique-works","book":{"amazon_purchase_url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674970977?tag=bookfrontie00-20","asin":"0674970977","authors":["Joy Lisi Rankin"],"book_id":"9780674970977","canonical_url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/people-s-history-of-computing-in-the-united-states-9780674970977","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780674970977.jpg?v=e67bc435e765b5fa","description":"Silicon Valley gets all the credit for digital creativity, but this account of the pre-PC world, when computing meant more than using mature consumer technology, challenges that triumphalism. The invention of the personal computer liberated users from corporate mainframes and brought computing into homes. But throughout the 1960s and 1970s a diverse group of teachers and students working together on academic computing systems conducted many of the activities we now recognize as personal and social computing. Their networks were centered in New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Illinois, but they connected far-flung users. Joy Rankin draws on detailed records to explore how users exchanged messages, programmed music and poems, fostered communities, and developed computer games like The Oregon Trail . These unsung pioneers helped shape our digital world, just as much as the inventors, garage hobbyists, and eccentric billionaires of Palo Alto. By imagining computing as an interactive commons, the early denizens of the digital realm seeded today’s debate about whether the internet should be a public utility and laid the groundwork for the concept of net neutrality. Rankin offers a radical precedent for a more democratic digital culture, and new models for the next generation of activists, educators, coders, and makers.","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9780674970977","publication_date":"20181008","publisher":"WW Norton","slug":"people-s-history-of-computing-in-the-united-states","subtitle":"Hardcover – Illustrated, October 8, 2018","title":"People's History of Computing in the United States"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"TEC008060","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Digital Electronics","score":0.7614,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"COM079010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Human-Computer Interaction","score":0.7559,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"BUS070030","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Tech Industry","score":0.7552,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"TEC008060","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Digital Electronics","score":0.7614,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"COM079010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Human-Computer Interaction","score":0.7559,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"BUS070030","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Tech Industry","score":0.7552,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"COM080000","confidence_band":"high","label":"History of Computing","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"EDU016000","confidence_band":"high","label":"History of Education","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"HIS036060","confidence_band":"high","label":"20th-Century America","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"Digital Electronics","score":0.7614,"slug":"digital-electronics"},{"label":"Human-Computer Interaction","score":0.7559,"slug":"human-computer-interaction"},{"label":"Tech Industry","score":0.7552,"slug":"tech-industry"}],"reader_fit":["Good for readers interested in the communal roots of personal and social computing","Activists and educators exploring democratic digital culture"],"related_lists":[],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["Howard Zinn"],"book_id":"9780062397348","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780062397348.jpg?v=ffb346e4531e345c","score":0.713,"title":"A People's History of the United States","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780062397348"},{"authors":["Malcolm Harris","Patrick Harrison","Little, Brown & Company","& 0 more"],"book_id":"9780316592017","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780316592017.jpg?v=d75214b8bd021c0f","score":0.7112,"title":"Palo Alto","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780316592017"},{"authors":["Walter Isaacson"],"book_id":"9781476708706","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781476708706.jpg?v=2211c88102f9d10e","score":0.6977,"title":"The Innovators","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781476708706"},{"authors":["Howard Zinn"],"book_id":"9781644212516","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781644212516.jpg?v=a836be80dbd439b0","score":0.6916,"title":"A Young People's History of the United States","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781644212516"}],"topics":[{"evidence_refs":["keyword:american history"],"label":"History","score":0.4536,"slug":"history"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:historical books"],"label":"Historical","score":0.1137,"slug":"historical"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:learning"],"label":"Learning","score":0.0532,"slug":"learning"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:education"],"label":"Education","score":0.0309,"slug":"education"}],"what_you_get":["Themes: Early academic and social computing, Computing as a digital commons, Democratic internet and net neutrality.","Themes: History, Historical, Learning.","Reading lane: Digital Electronics and Human Computer Interaction."]},"llm_signals":{"confidence":0.92,"pacing":"unknown","reader_fit":["Readers interested in the communal roots of personal and social computing","Activists and educators exploring democratic digital culture"],"themes":["Early academic and social computing","Computing as a digital commons","Democratic internet and net neutrality"],"tropes":[]},"source_presence":{"amazon":true,"book_detail":true,"goodreads":true,"llm_signals":true,"similarity_seed":true},"stats":{"amazon_ratings_count":37,"goodreads_ratings_count":193,"goodreads_reviews_count":33,"quality_score":0.8929}}