Preview
  • What Just Happened

  • A Chronicle from the Information Frontier
  • By: James Gleick
  • Narrated by: Dan Cashman
  • Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
  • 3.1 out of 5 stars (31 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

What Just Happened

By: James Gleick
Narrated by: Dan Cashman
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $15.75

Buy for $15.75

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

Here’s some of what just happened: Millions of ordinary, sensible people came into possession of computers. These machines had wondrous powers, yet made unexpected demands on their owners. Telephones broke free of the chains that had shackled them to bedside tables and office desks. No one was out of touch, or wanted to be out of touch. Instant communication became a birthright.

A new world, located no one knew exactly where, came into being, called “virtual” or “online,” named “cyberspace” or “the Internet” or just “the network.” Manners and markets took on new shapes and guises.

As all this was happening, James Gleick, author of the groundbreaking Chaos, columnist for The New York Times Magazine, and - very briefly - an Internet entrepreneur, emerged as one of our most astute guides to this new world. His dispatches - by turns passionate, bewildered, angry, and amazed - form an extraordinary chronicle. Gleick loves what the network makes possible, and he hates it. Software makers developed a strangely tolerant view of an ancient devil, the product defect. One company, at first a feisty upstart, seized control of the hidden gears and levers of the new economy. We wrestled with novel issues of privacy, anonymity, and disguise. We found that if the human species is evolving a sort of global brain, it’s susceptible to new forms of hysteria and multiple-personality disorder.

What Just Happened is at once a remarkable portrait of a world in the throes of transformation and a prescient guide to the transformation still to come.

©2000 James Gleick (P)2002 Books on Tape, Inc.
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Critic reviews

“A marvelous journey around our technology-drenched world...The work of a master.” (The Independent)

What Just Happened is a lively time capsule that examines the recent past - one that, not long ago, seemed fairly far-fetched.” (Columbus Dispatch)

“Invokes nostalgia for a simpler, more innocent time, before we took all this technology for granted.” (The Rocky Mountain News)

“Gleick’s a crack investigator who digs for the exceptional facts....A worthy overview...on the brave new problems we’ve faced - and will face into the future.” (Detroit Free Press)

What listeners say about What Just Happened

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    10
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    4
  • 1 Stars
    6
Performance
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    2
Story
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    2

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Out of Date for 2005

I picked up "What Just Happened" as I recognized Gleick as the author of "Chaos". If I read "What Just Happened" first, I would hadn't read "Chaos". :-(

Simply put as the other reviewers have said, it is out of date. The last essay is 2000 or 2001 so I was surprised when I saw that it had been released in 2005.

I've been using the 'net since 1991 and I enjoyed someone else's perspective for what was happening as the rest of America discovered the 'net in the mid-90's. In his latter essays, I was just waiting for him to finish his essay as he was just plain wrong.

I might be recommended to a 'net newbie that might be interested in some historical background. Otherwise, would not. I would bet that most Audible listeners whom use Audible, i.e., the recordings aren't selected and downloaded by someone else, are beyond "What Just Happened".

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Past it's prime

This would have been a great read some years ago, but the information age has progressed so rapidly that it is now largely outdated. Come back in twenty years and it will be interesting as a chronicle of the early years; now it is just old news.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Ramblings

A collection of dated essays on this thoughts about technology. Good in too many ways for historical trivia only.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Too Out of Date to Enjoy ...

Probably a fine read in 2000, or listen in 2002. Do not waste your time in 2011, as I groaned too often through the first half of the book about the claimed novelty of word processing font innovations or PDAs - while listening to the book on my 2011 I-Pad. I did not listen to the end (something I have done on only one other occasion), and don't regret it at all.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful