Full of memorable images that make the internet’s complex architecture easier to comprehend. Tubes uncovers an Internet that resembles nothing so much as a fantastic steam-punk version of itself.” - Boston Globe “ Tubes is an absorbing tale of this new technology, as well as a wonderful account of the Internet’s growth and the people who made it possible.” - Science News What makes Tubes more than an unusual sort of travel book, is sense of moral curiosity.” - New York Times a knack for bundling packets of data into memorable observations. Andrew Blum’s fascinating book demystifies the earthly geography of this most ethereal terra incognita.” - Joshua Foer, bestselling author of Moonwalking with Einstein “Every web site, every email, every instant message travels through real junctions in a real network of real cables. 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. You can map it, you can smell it, and you can even visit it-and that’s just what Blum does in Tubes.įrom 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/ 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. 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. 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 connected to what, exactly? In Tubes, journalist Andrew Blum takes readers on a fascinating journey to find out. An engaging, narrative tour behind the scenes of our everyday lives to see the dark beating heart of the Internet itself.

Tubes by andrew blum