BKINVINT.RVW   990709

"Inventing the Internet", Janet Abbate, 1999, 0-262-01172-7, U$27.50
%A   Janet Abbate
%C   55 Hayward Street, Cambridge, MA   02142-1399
%D   1999
%G   0-262-01172-7
%I   MIT Press
%O   U$27.50 800-356-0343 fax: 617-625-6660 www-mitpress.mit.edu
%P   264 p.
%T   "Inventing the Internet"

Buried midway through the introduction comes the statement that the
author has chosen to focus on a select group of topics in order to
support her own view of the most important social and cultural factors
of the Internet.  The intent of the book, therefore, is complex.  The
text must examine a technical development, identify social hypotheses,
and present arguments from the historical record to buttress those
theories.

Chapter one starts out by asserting that the most celebrated of the
ARPANET's technical innovations was packet switching.  Certainly
packet switching is a core concept in all discussions of modern data
communications.  Unfortunately, Abbate does not display the merits of
the idea with sufficient clarity, never dealing with issues of traffic
differences between voice and data, only tangentially mentioning
circuit switching, and clouding the deliberation with factors more
properly related to routing.  There is also an evident lack of
familiarity with basic technical processes.  In addition, the author
states that the ARPANET was the proving ground for packet switching,
ignoring the contribution of demonstrably much more widely used
networks such as Datapac and Transpac.  Furthermore, looking back to
the introduction we find that the social aspect we, as readers, are
supposed to note is how technologies are socially constructed.  Other
than the fact that technical people talk to each other, nothing
significant seems to be presented along this line.  Finally, the
extensive citations of works in the bibliography appeared to support
the scholarship of the work, until I noted that the most interesting
points tended to be those referring to private interviews and
materials written relatively long after the fact.

The content of chapter two alternates between descriptions of
political and managerial machinations of those involved in the early
development of the ARPANET and mentions of layered protocol modeling. 
Early users and usages are discussed in chapter three, but the text
swings between acknowledging and denying user development. 
Internetworking is introduced in chapter four, but protocol layering
is not re-examined even though it is at this point that the concept
becomes important.  Chapter five starts with a generic debate about
the need for, and interests against, standards, but then spends most
of the time reviewing X.25 and the OSI (Open Systems Interconnection)
model, with little relevance to the Internet.  Having meandered
through about ten years in the first five chapters, chapter six
leapfrogs twenty, racing from the military ARPANET into the academic
Internet and finally into the present commercial Internet.  The
trailblazing work of BITNET, Usenet, and even Fidonet is given only
token mention, and the description of the World Wide Web seems to
completely misunderstand how hypertext contributed to the use and
popularity of the net, stressing colour images rather than integration
of function.

Despite the collation of a wide variety of source materials, and the
presentation of a number of events not commonly cited, this book fails
as both history and social commentary.  Too many major occurrences are
dismissed too quickly to confer a full understanding of the
development of the Internet.  The cultural points Abbate tries to make
are either too subtle to come across to this uncultivated geek or are
unremarkable and trite.  (The closing statement that the net's
strengths lie in adaptability and participatory design is surely not
news to anyone with the slightest knowledge of Internet history.) 
Mostly, though, it appears that Abbate's lack of comprehension of the
technical aspects of the net ensures a failure to understand
significant historical and social factors as well.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1999   BKINVINT.RVW   990709