The Modem World

“Driscoll does an excellent job of covering not just the technologies that made it all possible, but the tone and mood of the times as well. . . . A great book for anyone who wants to understand the early days of online communications.”—Preston Gralla, Arts Fuse

“A tour de force. . . . The Modem World deserves wide readership, not only among historians of technology but also everybody who engages daily on computer networks and is curious about where it all came from.”—Ian Milligan, Technology and Culture

Winner of the 2023 Nancy Baym Annual Book Award, sponsored by the Association of Internet Researchers

“Whether you’re reading this for a nostalgic romp or to understand the dawn of the internet, The Modem World will delight you with tales of BBS culture and shed light on how the decisions of the past shape our current networked world.”—danah boyd, author of It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens

“The Modem World brings back to life a lost world of electronic communications, in the effervescent years before the Internet, World Wide Web, and the duopoly of Facebook and Google. Fascinating reading.”—Paul E. Ceruzzi, curator emeritus, Smithsonian Institution

“Everyone loves a good origin story, especially a forgotten one. The Modem World offers an overlooked history of the Internet—it’s full of insights into how we got here, and where we could have gone instead. Deeply empathetic and gently brilliant.”—Tarleton Gillespie, author of Custodians of the Internet