Leaders of the Information Age

Biographical profiles discuss the work of the men--and with just seven exceptions among the 250 entries, they all are men--who brought us the information age, from the printing press to Napster. Editor Weil, curator of the Computer Museum of America, chose for inclusion early programmers and academics who labored in obscurity as well as celebrity titans of industry like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. There is no cross-referencing, and the occasional typo jars (Leonardo becomes Leonard da Vinci in the profile on astronomer Wilhelm Schickard); dedicated techies will find plenty of basic facts about Western technology heroes in the workmanlike profiles, which are organized alphabetically. Each entry concludes with suggestions for further reading, much of it drawn from the popular and business press and company and organizational Web sites. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR