Part of the Twenty Books in Twenty Days series.
Many people in the computer industry don’t understand how we got here. Well, maybe not here. Due to the passage of time, it would be how we got to the mid-nineties.
This book [affiliate link] does not pretend to be objective or complete, but talks about both the technology and the people that got us from the invention of transistors to Windows PC. What I love about it is that it focuses on the people rather than the technology, yet still manages to put the technology into perspective. The writing is also very chatty and full of character. So much tech history is stodgy or dull or inaccurate. Empires is none of those things.
(I understand that Cringely may have made some questionable choice recently. This book is such a favourite of mine that I really don’t want to find out if that’s true.)