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The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google Reprint Edition

by Nicholas Carr (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 280 ratings
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“Magisterial…Draws an elegant and illuminating parallel between the late-19th-century electrification of America and today’s computing world.” ―Salon

Hailed as “the most influential book so far on the cloud computing movement” (Christian Science Monitor), The Big Switch makes a simple and profound statement: Computing is turning into a utility, and the effects of this transition will ultimately change society as completely as the advent of cheap electricity did. In a new chapter for this edition that brings the story up-to-date, Nicholas Carr revisits the dramatic new world being conjured from the circuits of the “World Wide Computer.”

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  1. ISBN-10
    9780393345223
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0393345223
  3. Edition
    Reprint
  4. Publisher
    W. W. Norton & Company
  5. Publication date
    June 10, 2013
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.8 x 8.3 inches
  8. Print length
    304 pages
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Future Shock for the Web-apps era…Compulsively readable―for nontechies, too―as it compellingly weaves together news stories, anecdotes, and data."
― Fast Company

"The best read so far about the significance of the shift to cloud computing."
― Financial Times

"Mr. Carr’s provocations are destined to influence CEOs and the boards and investors that support them as companies grapple with the constant change of the digital age."
― Wall Street Journal

"Exceedingly good."
― TechWorld

"The Big Switch is thought-provoking and an enjoyable read, and the history of American electricity that makes up the first half of the book is riveting stuff."
― New York Post

"Carr stimulates, provokes and entertains superbly."
― Information Age

About the Author

Nicholas Carr is the author of The Shallows, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, The Glass Cage, and Utopia is Creepy. He has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Atlantic, and Wired. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 039334522X
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (June 10, 2013)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780393345223
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393345223
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.3 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 280 ratings

About the author

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Nicholas Carr

Nicholas Carr

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Nicholas Carr is an acclaimed writer whose work focuses on technology, economics, and culture. His books, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist "The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains," have been translated into more than 25 languages. He is a visiting professor of sociology at Williams College in Massachusetts and was formerly executive editor of the Harvard Business Review. In 2015, he received the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity from the Media Ecology Association.

A New York Times bestseller when it was first published in 2010 and now hailed as “a modern classic,” "The Shallows" remains a touchstone for debates on technology’s effects on our thoughts and perceptions. A new, expanded edition of "The Shallows" was published in 2020. Carr’s 2014 book "The Glass Cage: Automation and Us," which the New York Review of Books called a “chastening meditation on the human future,” examines the personal and social consequences of our ever growing dependency on computers, robots, and apps. His latest book, "Utopia Is Creepy," collects his best essays, blog posts, and other writings from the past dozen years. The collection is “by turns wry and revelatory,” wrote Discover.

Carr is also the author of two other influential books, "The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google" (2008), which the Financial Times called “the best read so far about the significance of the shift to cloud computing,” and the widely discussed and debated "Does IT Matter?" (2004).

Carr has written for many newspapers, magazines, and journals, including the Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Wired, Nature, and MIT Technology Review. His essays, including “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” and “The Great Forgetting,” have been collected in several anthologies, including The Best American Science and Nature Writing, The Best Spiritual Writing, and The Best Technology Writing. Carr is a former member of the Encyclopedia Britannica’s editorial board of advisors and was a writer-in-residence at the University of California at Berkeley’s journalism school. Since 2005, he has written the popular blog Rough Type, at www.roughtype.com. He holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College and an M.A., in English and American Literature and Language, from Harvard University.

More information about Carr's work can be found at his website, www.nicholascarr.com. [Author photo by Scott Keneally.]

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
280 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Michael S.
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Writing
Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2021
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The author must now be in the top 10% of my all-time favourites because of his mastery of language, his simplicity of terms, and his ability to spin a network of information into a coherent package. I have not read this author before but will investigate his other works. Having just spent 8 months repairing my own 4 defunct macs, this book explains the development of computers and why apps/programs are moving towards the net only. Scary good. Sometimes stopping and smelling the roses means taking what little spare time you have and read books like this--both enlightening and time saving. Kudos to the author.
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oakfan641
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting and informative
Reviewed in the United States on August 30, 2009
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The Big Switch was an enlightening experience into the past, present and future of the computing world. Carr gives excellent insight into the future we can expect if present trends continue.
The beginning of the book focuses on the history of modern technology and how Edison and electricity changed our entire way of life thus paving the way for the computer and the Internet. Throughout, references to the history of computers are excellent. The book then focuses on the development of cloud computing in an easy to understand format which is quite revealing.
Almost the entire last half of the book is dedicated to several bleak and somewhat frightening chapters on how the Internet has made our lives less safe, and has led to our complete loss of personal privacy. Carr goes on to make interesting philosophical predictions on where this is all leading, which is a bit unnerving, but defiantly thought provoking.
I found the book well documented with references from the leading minds in a wide variety of fields and a must read for anyone interested in computers and their influence on the world we live in.
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FGW
5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting History plus Future Insight
Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2008
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This book begins with an interesting history of the impact of electricity and then shifts to providing insight into where we're headed with Information Technology.

It's a quick, easy and worthwhile read.

It amazes me just how much has changed since my grandparents time, how rapidly things are changing today and how much faster they will be changing for my grandchildren. Will my grandchildren indeed be forced to decide to remain as humans as we know them or become post humans? Carr touches on this subject in his last chapter titled "iGod".

For insight into the coming era of post humans, read "The Singularity is Near" by Ray Kurzweil or just wait for the movie with the same title to be released later this year.
2 people found this helpful
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Andrew Sanchez
3.0 out of 5 stars A grid-cloud comparison
Reviewed in the United States on April 1, 2011
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In his book, The Big Switch, Nicholas Carr related the history of the electric grid from the invention by Edison to the centralization of the grid and used it as a basis for the thesis of the book which is to derive a parallel for the evolution of information technology and processing. The underlying theme in the book is that as a technology matures, it becomes commoditized to gain efficiencies in production and usage and, eventually, it becomes indispensable but also brings with it unintended consequences. The book was divided in two parts which differ in theme and dynamics. The first part was historic and revolved around technology while the second part centered on social implications of technology.
The first section is covered electric and data technology and their evolution. Carr began his discussion with a comprehensive account of electrical energy generation. He started chapter one with the Burden's Wheel and explained that such invention allowed for the increase of productivity but was limited when kinetic energy could not be stored or transported for more than short distances within a factory. Additionally, kinetic energy from the Burden's Wheel required the use of physical conduits such as levers, pulleys and gears. The underlying power source of the Burden's Wheel was running water; therefore, industrial uses of its power were limited.
The second chapter included a detailed account of Edison's venture into the Direct Current (DC) generation as well as the subsequent advent of Alternate Current (AC) which allowed for the centralization of the power grid. In this chapter, Carr initiated the comparison of the electric grid to the information technology (IT) data center. His main idea behind the comparison was that as data processing becomes more and more commoditized, it no longer advantageous for companies to keep their own data center and incur the costs of keeping up an IT staff and operations facility when processing can be provided centrally at a much cheaper cost.
The rest of part covered analogy after analogy that attempts to draw a parallel between the evolutions of the electrical grid and the computing cloud. In chapter three, Carr covered the history of the computer from the early inceptions to the modern data center. The analogies stop making sense when the chapter cites the availability of cheap and vast bandwidth as the basis for cloud computing and AC power. While bandwidth and AC may be similar at some level, AC is pure power while bandwidth is not. He later corrects the analogy and points to the grid but the comparison continues to be a rather weak one from that point on; mainly because he is comparing two very different technologies with two distinct uses and levels of sophistication.
Later in part one he predicts the downfall of Bill Gates and his monopoly on computing as well as the inefficiencies of the data center. In his own logic, Carr argues that computers will become appliances that will require little in the way of customization and that processing and storage will take place entirely in the cloud. While this is happening with some success, it is not realistic to think that all processing can be in the hands of a few companies with centralized locations. The reason is that unlike the electric grid, data processing needs vary widely among companies. Many will undoubtedly require no more than what the cloud offers while others will necessitate vast amounts of processing and storage; not to mention security.
The IT industry has had some successes with the cloud and virtualization but there have also been a lot of failures which have forced companies to switch back to in-house processing and storage. The modularization of the cloud allows for efficient operations but even those operations are nothing more than big data centers which in turn will have their own inefficiencies. Carr makes no distinction between the centralized outsourced data center and the electrical grid with centralized power generation. Nevertheless, they cannot be compared at face value because, unlike electricity generation, processing and storage cannot be done for everyone with one solution. In other words, the electricity current that is used by a residence is only slightly different than the electricity used by the Pentagon and differs only in voltage. However, the processing and storage required by the two are vastly different. The Pentagon will not put its data where it can be reached by someone other than their employees or where it can be made unavailable by some system or power failure.
Overall the first half of the book was very fundamental in nature and included very accurate information about existing technologies and companies in IT. The analogies are at times not the best but Carr makes them work under a certain applied logic. The intended reader should be someone with some knowledge of IT as some of the assumptions and conclusions made by Carr require some analysis and objective questioning.
The second part brings the topic of the cloud to the present and Carr explains the promises of the internet and the worldwide computer. In Carr's view the internet is a web of computers that somehow morphed into a collective and he reasons that the "big computer" is better than the individual computers which act independently. One huge misunderstanding on Carr's part is the notion that the worldwide computer acts alone and by its own means. He mentions the advancement of knowledge, innovation and modularity which are all accessible via the web browser. What he does not seem to realize is that computing takes many forms and some are apt for modularization but some are not. Appliances are fine but eventually a web browser has to run on something. Computers fundamentally have not changed at all since the first Apple II. Computers need input, they process the input, they store the processed input and they output something. Appliances are a variation but not much else. All the innovations happened at the higher OSI layers; the top two layers, presentation and application, to be exact. While DC and AC are very different, the cloud and desktops and appliances are not all that different at their core. The cloud is merely a bunch of computers hooked up in a way that they can serve many users at once. This is really not much different than the mainframes and Wyse terminals from the 1970's and 1980's.
The big message that Carr wants to deliver throughout the book is that IT is on its last stand and that computing and end-users will require nothing more than a device with a browser to access all the vaults of information available on the web. What he does not realize, again, is that the cloud needs a lot of maintaining, upgrading, securing, cooling, backing up, cleaning and updating. End users will probably not be able to do all those things. It will require IT specialist to perform those functions. Carr failed to mention that moving the electric generation from the factory-based DC plant to the AC grid did not do away with electrical engineers or the equipment needed to generate electricity; it merely centralized the need.
The rest of the book takes on some interesting topics such as the unexpected consequences of the grid and the elaboration of home appliances which made housewives lives more isolated and even harder, to some degree, than before the electrification of the home. Carr makes the analogy to the notion that the internet would bring the world under a common collective which would interact without geographical and cultural barriers. Carr makes the assertion that the opposite occurred as the internet public became segmented into subcultures and special interest sites. While the arguments make sense, it is not clear where Carr got the idea that people expected the internet to bring the world into a common culture. Since no other medium before the internet had such an effect, there would be little reason to believe that a new medium do somehow erode culture and special interests.
The rest of the book is devoted to topics that the author should not have included such as security and privacy. He describes how easy it is to get anyone's surfing history and buying habits. While this may be easy for an internet service provider (ISP) it is rather difficult for an average user. Carr clearly got into realms of technology he does not fully understand. Although, Carr is able to recite protocol fundamentals, he is not aware of the vast complexity that exists in trying to read packets across switched subnets and behind NATted segments. Unfortunately, he was not able to rescue the end of the book as well as he admirably wrote the beginning.
Overall the book The Big Switch by Nicholas Carr provides much useful information on technology and contains accurate information on IT industry players such as Akamai, 3Tera and Citrix, he got entangled in topics he does not appear to fully understand. The value of the book lies in its detailed narration of the history of the electrical grid, computing and major events in the advent of the cloud. The book also includes well reasoned information on the unintended consequences of technology on society. Carr's book should not be adopted as a technical piece but rather a reasonable analogy between the electrical grid and cloud computing. There is no formal research, new models or any academic value; however, it presents a good representation into the popular view of the modularization of processing and storage.
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T. L. Flynn
5.0 out of 5 stars Take the guess work out of the cloud
Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2010
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As I went to read the The Big Switch by Nicholas Carr, I found myself a bit skeptical of what he would write and how he would possibly bend truths to make a point. I couldn't have been more wrong. I found his book to be based on a series of well documented facts and events that lead us to where the web is today and theories on where we are going tomorrow with the cloud/world wide computer. It was fascinating to read...I found I did not want to put the book down and when I did I wanted to tell my colleagues about it and get their perspectives...and to also share with my cutomers so they can see the evolution and future of the web as well. I have and will continue to recommend others read this book to give perspective and understanding of again where have been and what the possibilities and probablities are in the future. Definitely a thumbs up!
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JayG808
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the most impacting books I've ever read...
Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2018
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Nick Carr does an amazing job painting a picture that compares the electrification of the modern world to the developing world where compute power is becoming a utility. He delivers both a hopeful utopian view along side a more cautious dystopian one. But the afterword of the book, included as am update written in 2013 provides such a great exclamation point on the book that I had to read it twice. Definitely a recommended read.
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Giorgio
5.0 out of 5 stars Just... great!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 20, 2022
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Great book, it was one of my first purchases on Amazon (14 years ago!) and I went back to it for quotes uncountable times since then. Gives a great perspective on technology and human evolution.
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Nikita I.
5.0 out of 5 stars Very good for non-technical people
Reviewed in Germany on September 29, 2018
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A very good book which gives an overview about how technology changes our lives. It is written in a very clear manner so that a reader who is not deeply involved into the matter will understand. The author did a big research. This book is a definitemust-read!
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Michel
4.0 out of 5 stars Deep focus on business changes
Reviewed in Brazil on January 19, 2015
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The authoe explained on an easy way of how complete markets changed when the technology evolves. Going from electricity to Henry Ford and now how cloud computing is changing the way we work and how we interact with each other.
One person found this helpful
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Ari.s.
4.0 out of 5 stars interessante
Reviewed in Italy on July 9, 2016
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interessante e piacevole da leggere. specie nella seconda parte sono toccate tematica attuali e riesce a far riflettere su aspetti a volte sottovalutati.
assolutamente consigliato
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Pablo
4.0 out of 5 stars Must para cualquier emprendedor
Reviewed in Spain on April 5, 2016
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Gran libro aunque demasiado extenso y repetitivo a veces. Gran tesis sobre la evolución del mundo conectado. Una pena no contar con una copia en español
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