I listened to it again in 2017, having read it a few years after it originally came out. It still stands up well. I consider the book to be one of the best gen

I listened to it again in 2017, having read it a few years after it originally came out. It still stands up well. I consider the book to be one of the best general introductions to the history and politics of the establishment of the ARPANET/Internet, but it depends what you're looking for and what your degree of involvement and interest in the history of computing is! Some reviewers consider it a bit dry; I didn't. You'll learn about the socio-political conditions in the US that led to the establishment of DARPA, the key personalities who drove the effort technically and politically and the invention of packet switching and network protocols. The book serves as an excellent base for further reading on this era, such as the magisterial biography of JCR Licklider, "The Dream Machine", Steven Levy's "Hackers", John Markoff's bizarre and entertaining "What The Dormouse Said".