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the complete review - history / computers
README
by
W. Patrick McCray
general information | our review | links | about the author
| Title: | README |
| Author: | W. Patrick McCray |
| Genre: | Non-fiction |
| Written: | 2026 |
| Length: | 293 pages |
| Availability: | README - US |
| README - UK | |
| README - Canada | |
| from: Bookshop.org (US) | |
| directly from: The MIT Press |
- A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines
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Our Assessment:
B : neat way of presenting the history of computing in the US, ca. 1950-2000; well and entertainingly done
See our review for fuller assessment.
The complete review's Review:
As author McCray explains in his introductory chapter, this:
is a book about books about computing. It offers a history of computing writ large as seen through the histories of limited but well-chosen selection of books -- some iconic, others obscure -- and their authors, editors, publishers, and readers.While focused on the United States -- and (somewhat disappointingly but understandably) not extending to works of fiction --, McCray's relatively narrow approach nevertheless makes for a good overview of computing and the role(s) it has found in society, including the widespread adoption (in various forms) of it in academia, business, and by the public, as well as attitudes towards this new and constantly evolving technology. Books have played a perhaps surprisingly significant role here, as McCray's examples show.
His nine chapters each focus mainly on one book or author, beginning with Edmund Berkeley and his Giant Brains (1949) and more or less concluding with Esther Dyson's Release 2.0 (1997). (Amusingly, despite being one of the most recently-published titles, McCray notes that: "Unlike many of the other books I have examined so far [...] Dyson's Release 2.0 is both out of print and largely forgotten. Many of the journalists and other people active in the computing field in the 1990s that I interviewed didn't recall it". Ouch.) While it is specifically Dyson's book that McCray presents as: "also a component in a larger multimedia machine that Dyson's publisher created", in many of these cases there is more to it than just the book, and McCray is good at pointing out and considering these.
McCray provides useful biographical information about the authors, making for personal context to go with the (rapidly changing) circumstances when the various books were published (as well as making for often fascinating life-path stories, not least Michael Moritz's, his Apple-history The Little Kingdom barely a blip compared to his later success). In these sections McCray also describes how many of the books were conceived and evolved as they were being written. He also considers how the various books were received, both critically and commercially. The role of the publishers (or, in the case of Ted Nelson's self-published Computer Lib/Dream Machines, the lack thereof) -- including editorially as well as regarding marketing -- is also discussed, including, for example, how the fact that Doubleday was: "experiencing financial difficulties" and was in considerable disarray when publishing Michael S. Malone's The Big Score left it "an orphan", with Malone left to his own devices regarding the promotion work once it came out.
McCray also includes some discussion of the history of the Computer Literacy Bookshop, founded by Daniel A. Doernberg and Rachel Unkefer -- with Unkefer initially not fully on board with the concept:
"I thought it was a stupid idea," Unkefer recalled. "Why would anyone want to go to a bookstore that only has books about computers ? I thought it would be like having a bookstore with books about toasters."As McCray's book underlines, this was however a time when the number of books dealing with computer was rapidly increasing, and, as the store's success soon proved, there was a large audience for such a specialist-shop. (Alas, the same can not be said for books about toasters.) As he then also notes in explaining why README basically concludes at the turn of the millennium, the very nature of 'books' (including publishing and bookselling) has changed quite dramatically, especially since the late 1990s: like much in this book, Computer Literacy Bookshop was of its times and destined also not to last beyond them (the physical outlets closing in 2001). (Similarly, he does note the popularity and importance of print computer magazines -- something that has now also basically completely disappeared.)
While McCray does discuss their roles quite a bit, he might have offered a bit more about the leading publishers -- Addison-Wesley and John Wiley and Sons, in particular, which get some discussion but about which more could surely have been said -- and their roles. (Among the publisher stories he does offer are also a bit about For Dummies-publisher IDG, as well as O'Reilly & Associates, whose 'Global Network Navigator' however went beyond mere publishing.)
McCray serves up an interesting selection, discussing books that range from Norbert Wiener's God & Golem, Inc. to Donald Knuth's The TeXbook and from George Gilder's Microcosm to Lynn Conway and Carver Mead's Introduction to VLSI Systems. Some of these remain more read than others, but McCray's overview shows how they reflect their times, and those stages of the evolution of the computer revolution -- and how some of the concerns remain, or have been revived, despite very changed circumstances, as in considering Joseph Weizenbaum's now fifty-year-old Computer Power and Human Reason, McCray noting:
To Weizenbaum, the influence of computers was not located in its logic elements or memory banks but in the misleading language that accompanied them. Terms like "computer" and "artificial intelligence" had become dangerous representations for "what we have done and are doing" in uncritically accepting technologies. Weizenbaum said the root of the problem was linguistic, found in what he called "the technological metaphor." [...] Computer scientists, he argued, were introducing new metaphors that the larger culture was accepting and internalizing even if they didn't fully understand their implications.(So also re. his early ChatGPT-like computer program, ELIZA: "what really troubled Weizenbaum was that, even after he explained what ELIZA was (and wasn't), people still wanted to be fooled by it" .....)
And, along the way, McCray also touches on such things as the development of the internet and early: "Tensions over whether and how one used the internet for business", with the Computer Literacy Bookshop cautious in its first forays of using it in any way to sell books and the Wall Street Journal predicting in 1993: "the internet would soon 'get hit with ad clutter'" (ah, for the good old days of mere clutter ...).
Nicely wide-ranging, README is a fun computer-history, and a neat reminder of the roles books have played in that over the years. While somewhat limited in scope -- for a variety of valid reasons that McCray spells out --, it nevertheless gives both a good overview as well as provides interesting insight into the authors, books, and culture of the times covered (basically 1960-2000, with a few nods to what has happened since).
- M.A.Orthofer, 22 March 2026
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README:
- The MIT Press publicity page
- Fireside chat at CHM Live
- Profile at UCSB's The Current
- See Index of Books on Books
- See Index of books about the Internet and Computers
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W. Patrick McCray teaches at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
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© 2026 the complete review
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