New book review — getting tired?
This time I wanted to know a little bit more about the history of computing, but didn’t want to spend too much time on it, thus I decided to give Computing: A Concise History a go.
The book is honestly ok, meaning you can definitely live without reading it: it’s surely a good wrap-up on the history of computing, but I can’t really say I was extremely happy by the time I finished it.
At the end of the day, though, I need to also consider that the author wanted to give a very brief (hence the word coincise) overview of the matter, so it’s natural the book doesn’t dig deep into the topic. Overall, I think it’s an interesting read to go back to when you want to discuss the subject with others, but you won’t really find hidden gems in here.
One thing that I really didn’t like is that there are very few mind-blowing stories: the history of computing probably has an incredible amount of funny or interesting anectodes, but you won’t find many of them here. Faithful to its title, the book describes how computing evolved, from war machines to the internet, assuming that the reader doesn’t have too much time to waste; in that sense it definitely delivers on its premise.
Like we use to say in italy: no praise, no blame.