Review: The Big Switch - Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google

The Big Switch is a good read for the non-techie who wants to understand the essentials of cloud computing and its societal and marketing implications. At least, that's why I picked it up (thanks, Tom). But it was also an engaging vision of how the 'World Wide Computer' is changing life at every level.

Nicholas Carr delivers this easy-reading gloss of the digital 'switch' within a historical context that effectively tones down the usual hyperbole about revolutionary tech change. He takes us back to Edison and the invention of the electricity grid to ease us into the idea that technology is changing the way we work, consume, socialise and even think - again.

This context does make that idea oddly more palatable: in a way, we've already allowed technology to do this to us on a slower, perhaps less invasive scale, and it's been (shrug) ok, even good for us. He is careful to note the differences in the difficulties and benefits that accrue from each of these paradigm shifts, though.

I think what I appreciated most about this book compared to hyped-up accounts of how the www. is changing human interaction and commerce is that Carr isn't handing us a pet theory decorated with punditry - he's grounding the facts, analysis and opinion about a tech phenomenon in history and giving it all a sense of relevance instead of (merely) spin. The result for me is a feeling of having learned something instead of being sold it.