Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind-Expanding Technology [Paperback]

Howard Rheingold (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 18, 2000

The digital revolution did not begin with the teenage millionaires of Silicon Valley, claims Howard Rheingold, but with such early intellectual giants as Charles Babbage, George Boole, and John von Neumann. In a highly engaging style, Rheingold tells the story of what he calls the patriarchs, pioneers, and infonauts of the computer, focusing in particular on such pioneers as J. C. R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Bob Taylor, and Alan Kay. Taking the reader step by step from nineteenth-century mathematics to contemporary computing, he introduces a fascinating collection of eccentrics, mavericks, geniuses, and visionaries.The book was originally published in 1985, and Rheingold's attempt to envision computing in the 1990s turns out to have been remarkably prescient. This edition contains an afterword, in which Rheingold interviews some of the pioneers discussed in the book. As an exercise in what he calls "retrospective futurism," Rheingold also looks back at how he looked forward.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Where will our new machines take us? Back in 1985, forward-thinking Howard Rheingold asked research pioneers to describe the nascent personal-computer revolution and its trajectory, then examined their predecessors' work, in Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind-Expanding Technology.

Republished 15 years later with a new afterword by the author, the book is an excellent slice of "retrospective futurism"--showing how we got to our largely wired world and where we might find ourselves in the future, as well as exploring some might-have-been scenarios that still seemed likely in the '80s. Starting with engaging portraits of such important thinkers as Ada Lovelace, Alan Turing, and Jon von Neumann, Rheingold swiftly and seamlessly moves into more current affairs, checking out the men and women behind Xerox PARC, ARPANET, Apple, Microsoft, and other cornerstones of today's environment.

Some of the interviewees are less well known than they should be--the immensely popular World Wide Web often overshadows Doug Englebart's ideas, for example--but all have made important contributions to personal computing and networking. Some of the ideas in the book, like expert systems, have floundered somewhat from their creators' original intentions, but the creativity and determination to follow through regardless is inspiring.

Rheingold is adept at showing us how technology can help us shape a better human destiny. Tools for Thought reminds us that today's wild ideas are what bring tomorrow's radical change. --Rob Lightner

Review

"... a special book, one of the best histories yet." Personal Computing"A solid read." Washington Post

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press; 2 Rev Sub edition (April 18, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262681153
• ISBN-13: 978-0262681155
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 0.9 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,032,069 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Howard Rheingold is the author of:

Tools for Thought
The Virtual Community
Smart Mobs
Net Smart
Excursions to the Far Side of the Mind
Mind Amplifier

Was:

editor of Whole Earth Review

editor of The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog

founding executive editor of Hotwired

founder of Electric Minds

Has taught:

Participatory Media and Collective Action (UC Berkeley, SIMS, Fall
2005, 2006, 2007 )

Virtual Community/Social Media (Stanford, Fall 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010; UC Berkeley,
Spring 2008, 2009)
Toward a Literacy of Cooperation (Stanford, Winter, 2005)

Digital Journalism (Stanford University Winter, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 )

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Learn from History June 30, 2000

By Vincent O'Sullivan

Format:Paperback

Entering the 21st century it's still amazing to find that so many of the pioneers of computing are still alive. Rheingold has interviewed many of them over the years and this book is an interesting and valuble contribution to the genre.

The novel feature of the book is the way in which past interviews are brought up to date and the interviewees give their opinions on the differences between what they predicted and what happened.

The writing is excellent and very accessible. The interviewees come across as very normal people (which indeed they are) but it is very easy to forget they were still amongst the movers and shakers of computing in the late 20th century.

I think this book is a valuble work for those who see technology are more than just a vehicle for making money.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Really good book June 4, 2001

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Unwittingly maybe, Rheingold provides a really good account and even reference of the history of computing. He writes well and unlike some CS writers marries his subject with the real world. If you are studying the history of computing I really recommend this over Ceruzzi's book.

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Rheingold 10, Gates 0 December 29, 2000

By Robert David STEELE Vivas HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

Howard Rheingold, former Editor of the Whole Earth Review and one of the pure-gold original thinkers in the Stewart Brand and Kevin Kelly circle, lays down a serious challange to both decisionmakers and software producers that has yet to be fully understood. Originally published in 1985, this book was a "must read" at the highest levels of advanced information processing circles then, but sadly its brilliant and coherent message has yet to take hold--largely because bureaucratic budgets and office politics are major obstacles to implementing new models where the focus is on empowering the employee rather than crunching financial numbers.

This book is a foundation reading for understanding why the software Bill Gates produces (and the Application Program Interfaces he persists in concealing) will never achieve the objectives that Howard and others believe are within our grasp--a desktop toolkit that not only produces multi-media documents without crashing ten times a day, but one that includes modeling & simulation, structured argument analysis, interactive search and retrieval of the deep web as well as commercial online systems, and geospatially-based heterogeneous data set visualization--and more--the desktop toolkit that emerges logically from Howard's vision must include easy clustering and linking of related data across sets, statistical analysis to reveal anomalies and identify trends in data across time, space, and topic, and a range of data conversion, machine language translation, analog video management, and automated data extraction from text and images. How hard can this be? VERY HARD. Why? Because no one is willing to create a railway guage standard in cyberspace that legally mandates the transparency and stability of Application Program Interfaces (API).... Rheingold gets it, Gates does not. What a waste! Read more ›

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Great coverage of Influential people in computing history March 9, 2011

By Bas Vodde

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Tools for Thought dives into the history of computing and specifically the history of technology that augments human thinking from the perspective of a few influential people. The book is ordered chronologically starting with Babbage and Boole and ending with people the author guessed would become very influential like Ted Nelson and Avron Barr. Each chapter covers one person and their contribution to the history of computing.

The book consists of "three generations". The first generation are the people influential and building the first computers. This starts with Charles Babbage who build the analytical engine--the first computer (though he never got it working). George Bool who's boolean algebra and Alan Turing who's mathematics formed the basis of the first digital computers. John von Neumann then actually build the first digital computer. Then Norbert Wiener who invented cybernetics and Claude Shannon who created the information.

The second generation are the people who were influential to creating the ARPANet and the first personal computer. Starting with Licklider who was the first ARPA director and funded many of the important projects that lead to technological breakthroughs. He was later followed up by Bob Taylor who lead the development of ARPANet. The first hosts were at MIT were the MIT hackers were creating timesharing machines (strongly influenced by McCarthy who invented AI and list), Another host was Dough Engelbert's lab at Stanford where he research augmentation and developed the mouse. Another host was University of Utah where most of the important research related to computer graphics was happening.... Bob Taylor later left to lead the Xerox PARC lab where he collected the smartest people at that time who there created inventions such as the personal computer, the laser printer, and ethernet. Alan Kay was working also in PARC Lab and worked on the Alto and created the Smalltalk programming language.

The third generation were people who the author thought would become influential. At this moment, their influence has not been as strong as the first or second generation, but who knows. The three people he mentions are Brenda Laurel who was leading a research group at Atari related to human computer interfaces, Avlon Barr who was developing expert systems and Ted Nelson who was developing Xanadu which was some kind of a hypertext, versioned document management system. The book ends with an afterword in which the author reflects on the last three people after 20 years and explains where they ended up.

Tools for Thought is well written, engaging and fun to read. Looking at the history of "mind-expanding technology" from the different individuals perspective gives and interesting view on history and also makes quite clear how all people were related and how they build on each others work. Definitively recommended reading for anyone who is interested in computer history especially when you are looking for something that is easy to read. Read more ›

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Informed and Thoughtful July 3, 2000

By Sharon Shaw

Format:Paperback

The Afterword alone is worth the price of the book. Rarely does a thinker with the acumen of Rheingold also exhibit a willingness to re-examine, refine, and, on occasion, reverse positions taken a decade or more ago. Rheingold does in a way that is informative and mind-opening. Aside from the mound of solid information and provocative observations about the Internet in human life, Rheingold's prose is as comfortable and welcoming as those toes tucked into the grass as he composes on his laptop. A must read.