BKNTIZNS.RVW  970809

"Netizens", Michael HaubenRonda Hauben, 1997, 0-8186-7706-6, U$28.95
%A   Michael Hauben hauben@columbia.edu netizens@computer.org
%A   Ronda Hauben rh120@columbia.edu ronda@umcc.umcc.umich.edu
%C   10662 Vaqueros Circle, Los Alamitos, CA   90720-1314
%D   1997
%G   0-8186-7706-6
%I   IEEE Computer Society Press
%O   U$28.95 +1-714-821-8380, +1-800-CS-BOOKS fax: +1-714-821-44010
%O   cs.books@computer.org c.baltes@computer.org
%O   http://www.computer.org
%P   344
%T   "Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet"

This volume is a collection of essays by the two authors, written over
the past four years.  The papers are grouped into four sections that
can be roughly described as present, past, future, and theory.  The
pieces are heavily endnoted, and provide an extensive bibliographic
resource.

I find the social aspects of technology even more fascinating than the
systems themselves, so I was very eager to read this text.

It was a great disappointment.

The book is unfocussed and undisciplined.  The introduction states
that the "goal of this book is to provide needed perspective, to make
it possible to understand what impact the Net has had on the present
and can have on the future of our society."  But it doesn't provide
any perspective, just a mass of raw data.  The target audience is not
defined; netizens will find this material trite, poorly analyzed, and
repetitive, while the non-netted will not be able to judge, or in some
case, understand, the points being asserted.

Much of the content is redundant.  There are two general "histories"
of the Usenet: one in part one, and another in part two.  There are
two essays on politics and the net: one in part three, and another in
part four.  The book is strictly limited to Usenet, on the one hand,
while on the other, it includes histories of ARPA, UNIX, and the
effect of the printing press.

Overall, the writing manages to be quite astonishingly dull.

Obviously, the authors have done a tremendous amount of historical
research.  The references in the book are valuable.  But the text,
itself, comes off very poorly when compared with "The Internet Systems
Handbook" (cf. BKINTSYS.RVW), or Peter Salus' works, "Casting the Net"
(cf. BKCSTNET.RVW) and "A Quarter Century of UNIX" (cf. BKQRCNUN.RVW). 
(None of these books managed to make it into the bibliography.)

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1997   BKNTIZNS.RVW  970809