Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet with a New Introduction by the Author - Softcover

Blum, Andrew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 006285030X ISBN 13: 9780062850300

Publisher: Ecco Press, 2019

Synopsis

An engaging, narrative tour behind the scenes of our everyday lives to see the dark beating heart of the Internet itself.

We are all connected now. But connected to what, exactly? In Tubes, journalist Andrew Blum takes readers on a fascinating journey to find out.

When former Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska famously described the Internet as "a series of tubes," he seemed hopelessly, foolishly trapped in an old way of knowing the world. But he wasn't wrong. After all, as Blum writes, the Internet exists: for all the talk of the "placelessness" of our digital age, the Internet is as fixed in real, physical places as any railroad or telephone ever was. It fills enormous buildings, converges in some places and avoids others, and it flows through tubes under ground, up in the air, and under the oceans all over the world. You can map it, you can smell it, and you can even visit it--and that's just what Blum does in Tubes.

From the room in Berkeley where the Internet flickered to life to the busiest streets in Manhattan as new fiber optic cable is laid down; from the coast of Portugal as a 10,000-mile undersea cable just two thumbs' wide is laid down to connect Europe and West Africa to the wilds of the Pacific Northwest, where Google, Microsoft and Facebook have built monumental data centers--Blum visits them all to chronicle the dramatic story of the Internet's development, explain how it all works, and capture the spirit of the place/

Like Tracy Kidder's classic The Soul of a New Machine or Tom Vanderbilt's recent bestseller Traffic, Tubes combines deep reporting and lucid explanation into an engaging quest to understand the everyday world we live in.

About this title

About the Author

Andrew Blum is a journalist and the author of Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet, the first book-length look at the physical infrastructure of the Internet. Tubes has been translated into ten languages, and has become a crucial reference for journalists, politicians, and entrepreneurs eager to understand how the Internet works. Blum's writing about architecture, design, technology, urbanism, art, and travel has appeared in numerous publications, including Wired, Popular Science, Vanity Fair, and the New York Times.

From the Back Cover

Tubes looks behind the scenes of our digital lives at the physical heart of the Internet itself. This is a book about real places on the map: their sounds and smells, their storied pasts, their physical details, and the people who live there. Sharing tales of his on-the-ground reporting, along with lucid explanations about how the Internet works, Blum's eye-opening travelogue offers a unique perspective on the role of technology in our lives.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 006285030X
• ISBN 13: 9780062850300
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320