This book can best be described as a semi-poetic media studies rant. It reminded me of some of the works I have read by Marshall McLuhan, most of which I barely understood but some bits of which provided profoundly deep insights. To be honest, when I started reading this book, I said to myself: “I am too old for this.” And yet I persevered. To pay homage once again to McLuhan, who said, “The medium is the message,” the medium of this book is a very important part of the message. The reader is inundated with disjoint thoughts, threads of ideas, sound bites, and catchphrases, all leading to the resigned feeling that you do not understand, cannot understand, and never will understand--not at all unlike the medium of the Internet, which the book is about. Further, in the tradition of McLuhan, the book can best be summarized as “blah, blah, blah, amazing insight; blah, blah, blah, amazing insight.” So, to spare the reader of this review from the post-something wailings of media studies, we will skip over the “blah, blah, blah” and focus on a couple of the amazing insights.

The book begins with the following observation: “The network has become a defining concept of our epoch.” This is not really the beginning. It really occurs on page 23, after material intended to prepare you for the ride you are about to take, but the page is labeled “Part 1.” So, there is some justification for the claim that the book begins here. Nonetheless, this is an astute observation. For three or four centuries since the Enlightenment, we have been putting things into categories, naming the categories, determining their properties, and attempting to understand how they relate to each other. We have been trying to superimpose order on a world that accepts it graciously but not indefinitely. But, as things change, the order breaks down and we see the world as constantly morphing interconnections rather than orderly categories. This world of interconnections can be seen in any number of phenomena from computer networks, to social networks, to word or concept maps, and so on. I found this to be an amazing insight because it says that our attempts to nail down reality are failing as our technology and its consequences reveal the futility of those efforts.

A little further along, the author proclaims “habit + crisis = update,” which can simply be explained with the observation that we fall into patterns of behavior and continue to follow them until they don’t work anymore, and then we have to change our habits. The word “habit” here is used in the most general sense, from personal habits to cultural habits to electronic habits, which are normally referred to as software. But, our networks are constantly encountering crises and constantly updating, which suggests that built into our networks is a form of self-evolution where the network not only challenges order (habits) but continues to challenge any new order (new habits) that it may inadvertently create. Will the world ever make sense again? Who knows? But it is certainly something to think about.

This book is not for everyone. Many will find it frustratingly irrational. They will see it as a stream of consciousness rant that defies sense by making connections between ideas that may not normally be connected. Others may find tantalizing nuggets of “amazing insight.” Many will just nod and repeat quotes whether they understand them or not. Each reader will have to determine whether it is worth the effort.

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