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The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google Paperback – January 19, 2009
"Future Shock for the Web-apps era.... Compulsively readable―for nontechies, too."―Fast Company
Building on the success of his industry-shaking Does IT Matter? Nicholas Carr returns with The Big Switch, a sweeping look at how a new computer revolution is reshaping business, society, and culture. Just as companies stopped generating their own power and plugged into the newly built electric grid some hundred years ago, today it's computing that's turning into a utility. The effects of this transition will ultimately change society as profoundly as cheap electricity did. The Big Switch provides a panoramic view of the new world being conjured from the circuits of the "World Wide Computer." New for the paperback edition, the book now includes an A–Z guide to the companies leading this transformation.- Print length304 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherW. W. Norton & Company
- Publication dateJanuary 19, 2009
- Dimensions5.5 x 0.8 x 8.3 inches
- ISBN-100393333949
- ISBN-13978-0393333947
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Editorial Reviews
Review
- Booklist
“Quick, clear read on an important theme ... Scary? No doubt. But as we prepare for the World Wide Computer, it's not a bad idea to consider its dark side.”
- Business Week
“[W]idely considered to be the most influential book so far on the cloud computing movement.”
- Christian Science Monitor
“'Information is born free, but everywhere is found in chains.' So Nicholas Carr―in his latest and characteristically stimulating challenge to conventional thinking about technology―might have paraphrased Rousseau.”
- Democracy
“Carr is one of the more cogent writers on the economic and social implications of the changes sweeping through corporate data centres.”
- Financial Times
“An enjoyable and thought-provoking read.”
- GigaOm
“The Big Switch explains the future of computing in terms so simple I can understand them.”
- Ed Cone, Greensboro News-Record
“Carr stimulates, provokes and entertains superbly.”
- Information Age
“A leading technological rabble-rouser prognosticates a world beyond Web 2.0. [Carr's] broader sociological observations are punctuated by a pair of ominously prescient chapters about privacy issues and cyberterrorism.”
- Kirkus Reviews
“Carr may take a somewhat apocalyptic view of the vast technological and social issues which a move to utility computing will raise, not least those of privacy, ownership and access, but he makes a compelling case for its desirability in a world where the network is pervasive. Whether we go gently into this world is, of course, up to us, but with the insight offered here we will at least be prepared to understand the consequences of our choices earlier in the process rather than later.”
- New Humanist
“[#4 on Newsweek's "Fifty Books For Our Times":] You've heard of 'cloud computing,' but let's be honest, you really don't know what it means. Or why it's going to change everything.”
- Newsweek
“Nick Carr has written a meditation on the loss of the old when confronted by the new, the loss of the incumbents' advantage when history shifts under them, the loss of data control to third parties, and the loss of sovereignty to institutions and other actors we can't control.”
- Public CIO
“Carr’s analysis of the recent past is clear and insightful as he examines common computing tools that are embedded in the Internet instead of stored on a hard drive, including Google and YouTube.”
- Publishers Weekly
“Magisterial ... Draws an elegant and illuminating parallel between the late-19th-century electrification of America and today's computing world.”
- Salon
“While technological innovation is largely the creation of idealistic geniuses spurred on by utopian visions, Carr points out, it is rapidly co-opted by the incumbent in power and turned to other purposes ... Technology may be the ultimate tool or even the ultimate psychedelic, but do we really want to become utterly dependent on something about which we have essentially no say? And as for those Utopian visions, do we really share them?”
- San Francisco Chronicle
“The Big Switch ... will almost certainly influence a large audience. Carr persuasively argues that we're moving from the era of the personal computer to an age of utility computing - by which he means the expansion of grid computing, the distribution of computing and storage over the Internet, until it accounts for the bulk of what the human race does digitally. And he nicely marshals his historical analogies, detailing how electricity delivered over a grid supplanted the various power sources used during most of the 19th century ... I also suspect he's right to suggest that in a decade or so, many things we now believe permanent will have disappeared.”
- Technology Review
“Persuasive, well-researched, authoritative and convincing....He's reasonable in his conclusions and moderate in his extrapolations. This is an exceedingly good book.”
- Techworld
“The Big Switch is thought-provoking and an enjoyable read, and the history of American electricity that makes up the first half of the book is riveting stuff. Further, the book broadly reinforces the point that it's always wise to distrust utopias, technological or otherwise.”
- The New York Post
“The first serious examination of 'Web 2.0' in book form.”
- The Register
“Considered and erudite.”
- The Telegraph
“Mr. Carr's provocations are destined to influence CEOs and the boards and investors that support them as companies grapple with the constant change of the digital age.”
- The Wall Street Journal
“Lucid and accessible ... [Carr's] account is one of high journalism, rather than of a social or computer scientist. His book should be read by anyone interested in the shift from the world wide web and its implications for industry, work and our information environment.”
- Times Higher Education Supplement
“Mr. Carr is always interesting.”
- Washington Times
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (January 19, 2009)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 304 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0393333949
- ISBN-13 : 978-0393333947
- Item Weight : 8.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.3 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #4,184,002 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #821 in Information Theory
- #1,656 in Human-Computer Interaction (Books)
- #2,619 in Social Aspects of Technology
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Nicholas Carr is a New York Times-bestselling author whose work examines how technology influences people's lives, minds, and relationships. His books, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist "The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains," have been translated into more than 25 languages. His new book, "Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart," will be published in January 2025 and is now available for preorders.
A New York Times bestseller when it was first published in 2010 and now hailed as “a modern classic,” "The Shallows" remains a touchstone for debates on technology’s effects on our thoughts and perceptions. A new, expanded edition of "The Shallows" was published in 2020. Carr’s 2014 book "The Glass Cage: Automation and Us," which the New York Review of Books called a “chastening meditation on the human future,” explores the personal and social consequences of our ever growing dependency on computers, robots, and apps. His 2017 book, "Utopia Is Creepy," collects his best essays, blog posts, and other writings from the past dozen years. The collection is “by turns wry and revelatory,” wrote Discover.
Carr is also the author of two other influential books, "The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google" (2008), which the Financial Times called “the best read so far about the significance of the shift to cloud computing,” and the widely discussed and debated "Does IT Matter?" (2004).
Carr has written for many newspapers, magazines, and journals, including the Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Wired, Nature, and MIT Technology Review. His essays, including “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” and “The Great Forgetting,” have been collected in several anthologies, including The Best American Science and Nature Writing, The Best Spiritual Writing, and The Best Technology Writing. He has been a visiting professor of sociology at Williams College in Massachusetts and executive editor of the Harvard Business Review. In 2015, he received the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity from the Media Ecology Association. Since 2005, he has written the popular blog Rough Type. He holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College and an M.A., in English and American Literature and Language, from Harvard University.
More information about Carr's work can be found at his website, nicholascarr dot com. [Author photo by Scott Keneally.]
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The beginning of the book focuses on the history of modern technology and how Edison and electricity changed our entire way of life thus paving the way for the computer and the Internet. Throughout, references to the history of computers are excellent. The book then focuses on the development of cloud computing in an easy to understand format which is quite revealing.
Almost the entire last half of the book is dedicated to several bleak and somewhat frightening chapters on how the Internet has made our lives less safe, and has led to our complete loss of personal privacy. Carr goes on to make interesting philosophical predictions on where this is all leading, which is a bit unnerving, but defiantly thought provoking.
I found the book well documented with references from the leading minds in a wide variety of fields and a must read for anyone interested in computers and their influence on the world we live in.
It's a quick, easy and worthwhile read.
It amazes me just how much has changed since my grandparents time, how rapidly things are changing today and how much faster they will be changing for my grandchildren. Will my grandchildren indeed be forced to decide to remain as humans as we know them or become post humans? Carr touches on this subject in his last chapter titled "iGod".
For insight into the coming era of post humans, read "The Singularity is Near" by Ray Kurzweil or just wait for the movie with the same title to be released later this year.
The first section is covered electric and data technology and their evolution. Carr began his discussion with a comprehensive account of electrical energy generation. He started chapter one with the Burden's Wheel and explained that such invention allowed for the increase of productivity but was limited when kinetic energy could not be stored or transported for more than short distances within a factory. Additionally, kinetic energy from the Burden's Wheel required the use of physical conduits such as levers, pulleys and gears. The underlying power source of the Burden's Wheel was running water; therefore, industrial uses of its power were limited.
The second chapter included a detailed account of Edison's venture into the Direct Current (DC) generation as well as the subsequent advent of Alternate Current (AC) which allowed for the centralization of the power grid. In this chapter, Carr initiated the comparison of the electric grid to the information technology (IT) data center. His main idea behind the comparison was that as data processing becomes more and more commoditized, it no longer advantageous for companies to keep their own data center and incur the costs of keeping up an IT staff and operations facility when processing can be provided centrally at a much cheaper cost.
The rest of part covered analogy after analogy that attempts to draw a parallel between the evolutions of the electrical grid and the computing cloud. In chapter three, Carr covered the history of the computer from the early inceptions to the modern data center. The analogies stop making sense when the chapter cites the availability of cheap and vast bandwidth as the basis for cloud computing and AC power. While bandwidth and AC may be similar at some level, AC is pure power while bandwidth is not. He later corrects the analogy and points to the grid but the comparison continues to be a rather weak one from that point on; mainly because he is comparing two very different technologies with two distinct uses and levels of sophistication.
Later in part one he predicts the downfall of Bill Gates and his monopoly on computing as well as the inefficiencies of the data center. In his own logic, Carr argues that computers will become appliances that will require little in the way of customization and that processing and storage will take place entirely in the cloud. While this is happening with some success, it is not realistic to think that all processing can be in the hands of a few companies with centralized locations. The reason is that unlike the electric grid, data processing needs vary widely among companies. Many will undoubtedly require no more than what the cloud offers while others will necessitate vast amounts of processing and storage; not to mention security.
The IT industry has had some successes with the cloud and virtualization but there have also been a lot of failures which have forced companies to switch back to in-house processing and storage. The modularization of the cloud allows for efficient operations but even those operations are nothing more than big data centers which in turn will have their own inefficiencies. Carr makes no distinction between the centralized outsourced data center and the electrical grid with centralized power generation. Nevertheless, they cannot be compared at face value because, unlike electricity generation, processing and storage cannot be done for everyone with one solution. In other words, the electricity current that is used by a residence is only slightly different than the electricity used by the Pentagon and differs only in voltage. However, the processing and storage required by the two are vastly different. The Pentagon will not put its data where it can be reached by someone other than their employees or where it can be made unavailable by some system or power failure.
Overall the first half of the book was very fundamental in nature and included very accurate information about existing technologies and companies in IT. The analogies are at times not the best but Carr makes them work under a certain applied logic. The intended reader should be someone with some knowledge of IT as some of the assumptions and conclusions made by Carr require some analysis and objective questioning.
The second part brings the topic of the cloud to the present and Carr explains the promises of the internet and the worldwide computer. In Carr's view the internet is a web of computers that somehow morphed into a collective and he reasons that the "big computer" is better than the individual computers which act independently. One huge misunderstanding on Carr's part is the notion that the worldwide computer acts alone and by its own means. He mentions the advancement of knowledge, innovation and modularity which are all accessible via the web browser. What he does not seem to realize is that computing takes many forms and some are apt for modularization but some are not. Appliances are fine but eventually a web browser has to run on something. Computers fundamentally have not changed at all since the first Apple II. Computers need input, they process the input, they store the processed input and they output something. Appliances are a variation but not much else. All the innovations happened at the higher OSI layers; the top two layers, presentation and application, to be exact. While DC and AC are very different, the cloud and desktops and appliances are not all that different at their core. The cloud is merely a bunch of computers hooked up in a way that they can serve many users at once. This is really not much different than the mainframes and Wyse terminals from the 1970's and 1980's.
The big message that Carr wants to deliver throughout the book is that IT is on its last stand and that computing and end-users will require nothing more than a device with a browser to access all the vaults of information available on the web. What he does not realize, again, is that the cloud needs a lot of maintaining, upgrading, securing, cooling, backing up, cleaning and updating. End users will probably not be able to do all those things. It will require IT specialist to perform those functions. Carr failed to mention that moving the electric generation from the factory-based DC plant to the AC grid did not do away with electrical engineers or the equipment needed to generate electricity; it merely centralized the need.
The rest of the book takes on some interesting topics such as the unexpected consequences of the grid and the elaboration of home appliances which made housewives lives more isolated and even harder, to some degree, than before the electrification of the home. Carr makes the analogy to the notion that the internet would bring the world under a common collective which would interact without geographical and cultural barriers. Carr makes the assertion that the opposite occurred as the internet public became segmented into subcultures and special interest sites. While the arguments make sense, it is not clear where Carr got the idea that people expected the internet to bring the world into a common culture. Since no other medium before the internet had such an effect, there would be little reason to believe that a new medium do somehow erode culture and special interests.
The rest of the book is devoted to topics that the author should not have included such as security and privacy. He describes how easy it is to get anyone's surfing history and buying habits. While this may be easy for an internet service provider (ISP) it is rather difficult for an average user. Carr clearly got into realms of technology he does not fully understand. Although, Carr is able to recite protocol fundamentals, he is not aware of the vast complexity that exists in trying to read packets across switched subnets and behind NATted segments. Unfortunately, he was not able to rescue the end of the book as well as he admirably wrote the beginning.
Overall the book The Big Switch by Nicholas Carr provides much useful information on technology and contains accurate information on IT industry players such as Akamai, 3Tera and Citrix, he got entangled in topics he does not appear to fully understand. The value of the book lies in its detailed narration of the history of the electrical grid, computing and major events in the advent of the cloud. The book also includes well reasoned information on the unintended consequences of technology on society. Carr's book should not be adopted as a technical piece but rather a reasonable analogy between the electrical grid and cloud computing. There is no formal research, new models or any academic value; however, it presents a good representation into the popular view of the modularization of processing and storage.
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