An Oral History of the Internet How the Web Was Won This year
marks the 50th anniversary of an extraordinary moment. In 1958
the United States government set up a special unit, the Advanced
Research Projects Agency (arpa), to help jump-start new efforts
in science and technology. This was the agency that would
nurture the Internet. This year also marks the 15th anniversary
of the launch of Mosaic, the first widely used browser, which
brought the Internet into the hands of ordinary people. Millions
of words—multiplied and sent forth by the technology itself—have
been written on the world-changing significance of the Internet,
for good or ill, and the point hardly needs belaboring.
Surprisingly, few books have been written that cover the full
history of the Internet, from progenitors such as Vannevar Bush
and J. C. R. Licklider up through the entrepreneurial age of our
own times. Not many people recall that the first impetus for
what became the technology of the Internet had its origins in
Cold War theorizing a