“How the Internet Happened“ is a history book chronicling the Internet from Netscape through the launch of the iPhone.

If you are old and have been intimately involved with the Internet since 1995 (like me), then this is a good book that will rehash many things you have forgotten.

But if you are newer to the Internet, younger, or not in the business of the Internet, this is a GREAT book.

The author, Brian McCullough, also is the host of the Internet History Podcast where you can get a lot of the same content of the book.

There have been surprisingly few books written about the Internet’s history (most of the best ones are biographies that focused on just one character). This book does a good job chronicling the major Internet events over 13 years (1994-2007). While it is a book about the Internet, it is also a great history book (and no history book from this era would be complete without walking through the Internet phenomena which has truly changed society).

While McCullough spends some time diving into technology, the main contribution to this book is really distilling down the core events that matter and giving a good business overview. I highly recommend reading this (it is also a very fast read).

McCullough also does a great job reminding us about the 1990s mania, the IPOs, and how all the 90s investments lead to the boom in the 2000s.

Summation: read “How the Internet Happened” (I’ve also started following Brian on Twitter (@brianmcc))

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