The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal

Waldrop's biography of J.C.R. Licklider is also the most complete single-volume history of how personal computing came to be — from Vannevar Bush's "As We May Think" through ARPA funding, Xerox PARC, and the early internet. Licklider is the connecting figure because he funded, inspired or directly enabled almost every major development, often by placing bets on people rather than on specific technologies. For product direction the book is essential history: the computing environment we ship products into was shaped by specific people making specific decisions under specific institutional constraints, and understanding those decisions clarifies what "technology" actually is. Long, detailed, written with a biographer's patience. The Stripe Press reissue is the edition to find.