Description
Book SynopsisDetails the story of a group of San Francisco Bay Area entrepreneurs - Stewart Brand and the Whole Earth network. While tracing the transformation of how our networked culture came to be, this book reminds us that the distance between the Grateful Dead and Google, between Ken Kesey and the computer itself, is not as great as we might think.
Trade Review"[Turner] postulates that Brand was an idealistic (albeit Barnumesque) leader of a merry band of cybernetic pranksters who framed the concept of computers and the Internet with a seemingly nonintuitive twist: These one-time engines of government and big business had transmogrified into a social force associated with egalitarianism, personal empowerment, and the nurturing cocoon of community." - Steven Levy, Bookforum "A revealing new book.... [Turner] is rigorous in his argument... and impressive in his range." - Edward Rothstein, New York Times "Turner's fascinating From Counterculture to Cyberculture... focuses on a key player whose role was making the counterculture-cyberculture connection: Stewart Brand.... There are a myriad of fascinating little historical details that [Turner] dug up that will surprise and enlighten even the key players in the drama." - Henry Lieberman, Science"