Top 4 books on the history of computing

#1 - The Innovators

by Walter Isaacson

If you're only going to read one, this is it. Walter Isaacson is an outstanding biographer, and his work of research as well as storytelling is titanic.

The book begins in the 19th century with the story of Ada Lovelace, the first programmer in history, and ends with the story of the web with (among others) Tim Berners-Lee, Larry Page & Sergey Brin (Google), while going through all the inventions and periods that shaped the history of modern computing.

Link to buy it: Place des libraires, Amazon, Fnac

#2 - Steve Jobs

by Walter Isaacson

Do you like Steve Jobs? Great. Don't you like him? Too bad, read it anyway.

In addition to being Steve Jobs' biography, this book is an incredibly complete picture of computing in the 70s/80s and the advent of the personal computer.

Link to buy it: Place des libraires, Amazon, Fnac

#3 - The Boy Who Could Change the World

by Aaron Swartz

Aaron was, despite his young age, a visionary and a computer genius as well as an expert in everything related to data and information sharing. He took part in creating web standards like the RSS format, and he is also considered one of the co-founders of the Reddit platform.

The book brings together the writings from his conferences, articles written for a few newspapers, but above all those from his blog, which he had kept since his early youth (some articles were written when he was only 14 years old).

Link to buy it: Place des libraires, Amazon, Fnac

#4 - Artificial Intelligence Doesn't Exist

by Luc Julia

The subject of Luc Julia's book is, as the name suggests, artificial intelligence, not just the history of computing. Nevertheless, Luc takes us with him back to 1993, to the legendary Xerox Parc in Silicon Valley and to the "Computer Human Interaction Center" lab, which he would later go on to direct, and his journey is well worth the trip!

Link to buy it: Place des libraires, Amazon, Fnac