The most effective way to demonstrate a parallelism is to describe the unfamiliar in such a way that its similarity to the familiar is obvious. Standage's short but effective history of the telegraph's initial period of rapid growth resonates with anyone even casually familiar with the Internet. Only in his concluding two-page epilogue does he feel the need to explicitly draw a parallel between the telegraph and the Internet.

This would still be a fascinating and thought-provoking book even without the implicit comparison to today's expanding Internet infrastructure. The first use of electricity and wire for instantaneous communication represented a quantum change in society, affecting the media, government, and individuals. Everything since then has just been a refinement to that first revolution. A less significant but amusing factoid was that the young Tom Edison lived on huge amounts of weak coffee and apple pie when pulling all-nighters to invent. Its easy for the reader to envision him as an early hacker, endangering his health with the 19th century equivalent of Jolt Cola and Twinkies.

This book is equally enjoyable to anyone who enjoys the history of technology, and those who have a more specific interest in the Internet and want to learn what lessons a historical high-tech boom can offer.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who uses the Internet, and especially for those interested in the "big picture" implications of it.

The historical connection between the Internet and telegraphy is eerie in part because it is so unexpected. By examining the impact of the telegraph, Standage helps deflate some of today's grander claims about the Internet (some of which have been made by people who should know better). He also makes a convincing point that the cultural and business changes brought about by the telegraph were far greater than those brought today by the Internet.

But the comparisons between then and now are really not the focus of the book. Standage paints a fascinating picture of the personalities, public reaction, and the successes and failures of this revolutionary technology. It is a great story, well told.

If you're looking for a gift idea for the holiday season, this book is an excellent choice.

The title of this book, 'The Victorian Internet,' refers to the 'communications explosion' that took place with the advent and expansion of telegraph wire communications. Prior to this, communication was notoriously slow, particularly as even postal communications were subject to many difficulties and could take months for delivery (and we complain today of the 'allow five days' statements on our credit cards billings!).

The parallels between the Victorian Internet and the present computerised internet are remarkable. Information about current events became relatively instantaneous (relative, that is, to the usual weeks or months that it once took to receive such information). There were skeptics who were convinced that this new mode of communication was a passing phase that would never take on (and, in a strict sense, they were right, not of course realising that the demise of the telegraph system was not due to the reinvigoration of written correspondence but due to that new invention, the telephone). There were hackers, people who tried to disrupt communications, those who tried to get on-line free illegally, and, near the end of the high age of telegraphing, a noticeable slow-down in information due to information overload (how long is this page going to take to download?? isn't such a new feeling after all).

The most interesting chapter to me is that entitled 'Love over the Wires' which begins with an account of an on-line wedding, with the bride in Boston and the groom in New York. This event was reported in a small book, Anecdotes of the Telegraph, published in London in 1848, which stated that this was 'a story which throws into the shade all the feats that have been performed by our British telegraph.' This story is really one of love and adventure, as the bride's father had sent the young groom away for being unworthy to marry his daughter, but on a stop-over on his way to England, he managed to get a magistrate and telegraph operator to arrange the wedding. The marriage was deemed to be legally binding.

A very interesting and remarkable story that perhaps would have been forgotten by history had history not set out to repeat itself with our modern internet.

In 1846 German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle discovered the eighth planet of the solar system, Neptune. However, the actual sighting of Neptune was not the most significant aspect of the planet's discovery; that claim goes to the mathematical accomplishment of two men who led astronomers in the right direction.

Those two men were John Couch Adams and Urbain Jean-Joseph La Verrier. Working independently Adams and La Verrier had calculated the approximate location of the as yet unknown planet. They hoped to solve the mystery of Uranus's irregular orbit by proving that a planet farther out was affecting its orbit. Astronomers had been trying to explain the orbital discrepancies for decades since William Herschel discovered the planet in 1781.

It was La Verrier who had told Galle were to scan the skys for the planet. When Galle reported the finding he rightfully assigned the true discovery of the planet to La Verrier. Unbeknownst to La Verrier though was that an obscure Cambridge University graduate had determined the new planet's location nearly one year before him. That graduate was Adams.

The controversy that ensued over who said what and when they said it should have made for riveting reading. Instead, Tom Standage's retelling of the drama in "The Neptune File: A Story of Astronomical Rivalry and the Pioneers of Planet Hunting" is about as exciting as my three paragraph summation. Standage gives a good account of the background to the controversy and presents the views of the major figures involved; but, he presents it in such a way that it seems no more interesting than two people arguing if a six-pack of soda counts for one or six items in the express lane.

Perhaps the actual event was no more exciting than Standage's recount. If so, then why bother rehashing it. The import of the work done by La Verrier and Adams is felt even to this day. They had discovered a planet without having seen it with their eyes. They proved that it was possible to discover planets via mathematical computation alone. This opened up the whole cosmos to planet hunters since an actual planet need not be seen.

Standage does come at the story from this angle later in the book. However, it was too late to save it by this point. Had Standage focused on modern day planet hunting and how it relates to the work done by La Verrier and Adams instead of on the supposed controversy surrounding their work, this would have been a far more interesting and informative read. Of course the title would have had to have been different as "The Neptune File" is what the British Royal Astronomer George Airy called his file containing all of the information regarding Adams's work on calculating the existence of the then unseen planet. However, I would trade a good title for a good book any day.

I devoured this book in three big bites. From the shockingly superior optics of William Herschel to the elegant mathematics of John Couch Adams to the extra-solar planets discovered in the late 1990s to the techniques being now developed to find planets orbiting other stars -- its all fascinating. In the end, most of what you thought watching Star Trek had taught you about distant worlds is sacked. "The idea that planetary systems around other stars will be broadly similar to our own solar system is no longer tenable. Indeed, as more planets are discovered, it is our solar system itself that starts to seem more and more unusual."
If you don't read science books and don't know why anybody would, this book might change your mind. Highly recommended.

I actually picked up this book in a used bookstore and read the back cover. The facts surrounding the discovery of the planet were new to me. (Kind of embarrassing really that I had never heard it before. Remind me to contact the secondary school I attended!!) In any event, I was enamored by the discriptions on the back cover and bought it for around four or five bucks. I read it in less than a day, which for me is an extreme rarity. I usually spend my time in the "shallow end" of the literary pool, reading books that can only be described as "easy" reads. This is one of the most entertaining books I've read in years. Unfortunately, I lent the book to someone who had more of a background in astronomy who must have known the book's true value and I haven't seen the book (or the guy) since. So I'm back here to purchase another copy. This time I am much more certain of my investment.

Tom Standage investigates one of the 18th century's most interesting mysteries, the chess playing automaton "The Turk." Part detective story and part technological history, THE TURK combines a tale of man's fascination with the concept of "thinking machines" with the story of how the pursuit of that ideal led to the creation of one of the greatest ruses in history. By gradually (a bit too gradually) introducing the reader to the time period and the public's preoccupation with all things mechanical, Standage shows the reader a world waiting to be amazed; even if the amazement comes by way of an ingenious form of misdirection. With appearances by a number of figures who were intimately involved with The Turk's "performances to the interaction of such luminaries as Napoleon and Poe, Standage keeps the reader interested in each and every twist of The Turk's rather bizarre history. It is only when Standage takes on the philosophy of the "thinking machine" does the book make a wrong turn; it slows down the pace and interrupts the flow of what is otherwise an intriguing look this amazing example of man's ingenuity.
P.S. You will find out how it works!

Although a familiarity with chess will help, you don't need to be an enthusiast to enjoy this excellent book. Lovers of magic, mysteries, showmanship, mechanical engineering, computers, game theory, psychology, math and history will all find this a fascinating and engrossing story, as will anyone with a smattering of intellectual curiosity. Standege has created a faithful history that is also a page turner. The tale of The Turk is amazing; for its celebrated encounters with formidable intellects ranging from Napolean to Edgar Allan Poe; for its effect on the fortunes and misfortunes of its inventor and promoters; for its role as an inspirer of modern computing; and also for the sad fact that few people today have heard of the automaton that once enthralled and baffled people in dozens of countries through two centuries. Even more compelling is the book's subtext about credulity and the public's ready willingness to believe what what their eyes show them, even when their brains know that it is not possible.

This is a delightful book that takes one cultural artifact (a mechanical chess playing machine that looks like a human being and is dressed in oriental opulence, "The Turk") and follows its entire life, from its conceptualization and manufacture to its final demise in a fire in Philadelphia. The period of the Turk's life lasted 85 years, and the people who somehow met and interacted with it were such luminaries Napoleon, and Charles Babbage (inventor of the first computer, sort of), and P. T. Barnum. Edgar Allan Poe started an entire genre (the short detective story) by writing "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," in part inspired by the mental exercise of trying to figure out how The Turk worked. Silas Wier Mitchell, the famous American Civil War physician and neurologist, actually owned The Turk before donating it to the Chinese museum in which it finally perished. Literally hundreds of Europe's intellectuals, and crowned heads, and glitterati of one sort or another played chess against the famous automaton, and usually (but not always) lost the game. And nobody except the operators knew the secret of the machine.

The Turk was the work of Wolfgang Kempelen, an engineer and an aid to the Austro-Hungarian Empress Maria Theresa, who called him to court so that he could explain to her the magic and the related magnetic games that were being demonstrated by a Frenchman by the name of Pelletier in the various courts of Europe. Maria Theresa, being of a scientific mind herself, wanted a respected official to uncover the trickery (if any) involved in Pelletier's performance. Mr. Kempelen explained each act as it was being performed, and was so unimpressed by the whole show that he boasted that if he had six months of free time he would be able to construct a really impressive automaton that would outclass anything then being shown in Europe. Maria Therese took him up on the challenge, and ordered him to go home, build his marvel in six months, and forget his duties to the state during that period.

Six months passed and in the Spring of 1770 Mr. Kempelen arrived in court with the Turk in tow. It was a life-size wood carving of a man wearing Turkish garb, seated at a table, with only one movable arm (the left)with dexterous fingers, and with a fixed gaze that stared down at a chess board. On the night of the first demonstration, Kempelen wheeled the figure before the audience, opened the various doors of the table, showing an impressive set of elaborate and mysterious clockwork and allowing the audience to look through the various openings, shining a candle for behind, so that they would see they were either empty or full of wheels and cogs, but free of any human being. When he convinced everyone that there was nothing hiding inside the machine, Kempelen invited one of the courtiers to sit at the table and play against the Turk. He used a large key to wind it up, and when he released a lever the Turk moved his head as if scanning the board, and suddenly reached out his arm and moved a piece. The game had began! Every ten moves or so, Kempelen would wind up the mechanism again, giving it the additional energy to proceed with the game. The Turk, of course, won the match that launched his famous career.

The author follows this career carefully and only after the Turk's life was ended does he reveal the method used by Kempelen (and others that owned the automaton). That is fair enough, giving the book the measure of suspense it should have in order to keep the reader excited and able to create his or her theory about how the machine operated and hold it until the end of the book.

The book does not end with the demise of the Turk, but it extends into the realm of the Kasparov - Deep Blue matches of 1996 (Kasparov won) and 1997 (D B won). It is a thoroughly delightful book to get into, and a hard one to put down. Even after the secrets of the machine are revealed, one is left in utter amazement about the Turk and its rambunctious life.