How Steam and Chips Remade the World by John Steele Gordon

How Steam and Chips Remade the World by John Steele Gordon

As the railroad was for the steam engine, the internet is the microprocessor’s most significant subsidiary invention. It revolutionized retailing, news distribution, entertainment, communication and much more.

Like cheap energy, cheap information has created enormous new fortunes, ineluctably increasing wealth inequality. But also like cheap energy, the source of those fortunes has given nearly everybody a far higher standard of living. 

To understand how profound the microprocessor revolution has been, consider this. The great science writer Arthur Clarke once noted that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. A man from half a century ago would surely regard the now-ubiquitous smartphone as magic.

A celebration of technological innovation.