
What Just Happened
A Chronicle from the Information Frontier
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy for $15.75
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Dan Cashman
-
By:
-
James Gleick
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.Listeners also enjoyed...








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)
People who viewed this also viewed...



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".
Out of Date for 2005
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Past it's prime
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Ramblings
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Too Out of Date to Enjoy ...
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.