The History of the Computer: People, Inventions, a

Beautiful and informative!
This book was such a treat! I am a long time tech nerd and this book is filled with accurate and informative graphics that celebrate computer history. My nephew loves this book and can’t put it down. He is learning so much and we are having a lot of fun talking about this book together. The illustrations are so impressive. It is a total slam dunk!

College Level Textbook Dressed as a Cartoon
This book was a find, and now I assign it to my college students every semester. This is simply the best, most accessible book on the history of computing that I’ve found. It acknowledges the contributions of thousands of people, particularly women and minorities, over the course of generations, each building upon the work of others. Don’t let the art fool you. The fact that the is illustrated disguises how dense and well researched it is. There is serious scholarship here. People need to read and understand: this is the story of our times.

Good reference
This was a gift for a teen grandson with an interest in computers

Well-researched, text-heavy, could have a more logical way of storytelling
I have always had an interest in robots and the technology and psychology surrounding them and how this technology has shaped people – this is where computers come in and with this book with the under title ”People, Inventions, and Technology that Changed Our World” I hoped to get more lovely knowledge about a subject I love. I might add that my knowledge is more of an beginner/intermediate level than of an expert, so there is still lots of room to learn new and more.There is no doubt that this is a well-researched book about the history of the computer and it explains to perfection what a computer is – a tool that can process a large amount of numbers correctly. Human brains have always had limited capacity and through this book, we are shown different tools/computers used throughout history from ancient times till today that has helped humans compute information too grand for the human brain.It’s a text-heavy and information-heavy book, and with children as a target audience, I would say it’s a book parents read WITH their children. I think it would have to be a stubborn and nerdy kid to reach the end alone. The information overload can be overwhelming at times and I had trouble seeing why some info was relevant in the different sections.The cover is a good illustration of what to expect of the pages within – from corner to corner, the whole page will be covered with text and illustrations. (The illustrations won more space than the text and it caused that the letters were really small. Not ideal!)The illustrations are an important part of understanding the text, but the layout of the page (with no blank spots) was, again, overwhelming.And this is just my opinion, but I felt like the text could have had a better breadcrumb trail through the subjects to avoid that some info gets repeated several times. It could help with the info overload if the direct line towards the conclusion was more visible. It would have been helpful and encouraging if the author finished one thing so I understand and can use that knowledge in the next subject she presented.If you or your kids have an interest in learning about how amazing humans have invented computers throughout times to help them in their daily life and how human history is shaped by these inventions, then this is the read for you.I really wanted to love this read, but it was a heavy/not always logical read. It’s not meant to be read in one setting and I am okay with that, but because I couldn’t see the logic/breadcrumb trail in the chapters it meant that I found it difficult to put it away in case I forgot the information I read earlier. I feel like I failed in reading this book. It had a lot of research and information, but it’s like it was a bit too much for my brain to take in.Other things to tell:The book centre a lot around American inventions.From what I can see on Goodreads, this author like to highlight women relevant to her subject and she does the same here. As a woman myself, I found that great, but I still felt some highlights was pushing it. Some inventions have taken a team of people to finish, and it’s okay to mention the people, but highlighting the women or people of colour only is hard to understand.

Das Buch ist wirklich toll aufgebaut und illustriert.Ich als Informatiker habe sogar noch 2-3 Sachen gelesen wo ich so direkt nicht wusste – Das kam gut für meine Webseite 🙂

I purchased this book for a newly 7 yr old boy who loves learning how things work. I knew mom or dad would be reading it with him, and all three give this book 5 Stars. Older sister (11) gave it a read as well and used it for a school project. I ended up purchasing another for my teaching library and and my students love it as well.