overview

primers

snapshots

dates



























related:

Communication
revolutions

     primers

This page highlights some points of entry to the literature on the history and economics of the information technology industry.

It supplements discussion elsewhere on the caslon.com.au site regarding connectivity, publishing, regulation, culture and network management.

     introductions

For context there are useful overviews in Computer: A History of the Information Machine (New York: Basic Books 1996) by William Aspray & Martin Campbell-Kelly, Paul Ceruzzo's A History of Modern Computing (Cambridge: MIT Press 1998) and From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog: A History of the Software Industry (Cambridge: MIT Press 2003) by Martin Campbell-Kelly.

     industry

For an industry perspective we commend The International Computer Software Industry: A Comparative Study of Industry Evolution & Structure (Oxford: Oxford Uni Press 1995) edited by David Mowery. As an introduction the essays on the hardware and software industries in Sources of Industrial Leadership: Studies of Seven Industries (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 1999) edited by David Mowery & Richard Nelson are of considerable value. Technological Competition and the Structure of the Computer Industry (PDF) by Shane Greenstein & Timothy Bresnahan and the latter's The Changing Structure of Innovation in the Computer Industry (PDF) are also important.

     impacts

For a perspective that embraces business and social aspects we recommend James Cortada's exemplary Before The Computer: IBM, NCR, Burroughs & Remington Rand & the Industry They Created 1865-1956 (Princeton: Princeton Uni Press 2000), his The Computer in the United States: From Laboratory to Market, 1930-60 (Armonk: Sharpe 1993) and Information Technology Policy: An International History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004) edited by Richard Coopey.

Inventing the Electronic Century: The Epic Story of the Consumer Electronics and Computer Science Industries (New York: Free Press 2001) by Alfred Chandler extends the analysis in A Nation Transformed By Information (New York: Oxford Uni Press 2000) and is a 'must read'.

Cortada's The Digital Hand, Vol 1: How Computers Changed the Work of American Manufacturing, Transportation, and Retail Industries (New York: Oxford Uni Press 2004) and The Digital Hand, Volume 2: How Computers Changed the Work of American Financial, Telecommunications, Media, and Entertainment Industries (Oxford: Oxford Uni Press 2006) are at times overly reductionist but are strongly recommended.

     hits and myths

Michael Riordan & Lillian Hoddeson's Crystal Fire: The Invention of the Transistor & the Birth of the Information Age (New York: Norton 1997), Kenneth Flamm's Creating The Computer: Government, Industry & High Technology (Washington: Brookings Institution 1988) and The First Computers: History & Architectures (Cambridge: MIT Press 2000) edited by Raul Rojas & Ulf Hashagen are useful background material. John Markoff's What The Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry (New York: Viking 2005) offers a revisionist - and for us unconvincing - account of the birth of the PC, complemented by Matthew Fuller's Behind the Blip (Autonomedia) and Cutting Code: Software And Sociality (New York: Peter Lang 2006) by Adrian Mackenzie.

They are complemented by Campbell-Kelly's 1995 Development & Structure of the International Software Industry, 1950-1990 (PDF) and 2001 Not Only Microsoft: The Maturing of the Personal Computer Software Industry, 1982-1995 (PDF).

     biographies

Biographical collections abound. They include James Cortada's succinct Historical Dictionary of Data Processing: Biographies (New York: Greenwood 1987) and John Lee's International Biographical Dictionary of Computer Pioneers (Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn 1995).

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