I'd start with the slides from a powerpoint by ras on traceroute: http://www.nanog.org/meetings/nanog47/presentations/Sunday/RAS_Traceroute_N47_Sun.pdf http://w

I'd start with the slides from a powerpoint by ras on traceroute: http://www.nanog.org/meetings/nanog47/presentations/Sunday/RAS_Traceroute_N47_Sun.pdf http://www.nanog.org/meetings/nanog47/presentations/Sunday/R... He really gets into how, with traceroute, you can get a glimpse of how everything fits together, beyond just "oh, this hop and now that hop". Also, Andrew Blum's book Tubes is a good casual look into how the world of data centers, IXPs, carriers, etc all fit together.