A Journey To The Center Of The Internet Summary

While reading Tubes - A Journey to the Center of the Internet written by Andrew Blum, I felt super engaged with the different experiences the author explained. All in all, the book is basically a technical history of the internet. Blum uses metaphors humor, pop culture, and emotion to consider this thing we call the internet. He begins at the terminal, and traces through the various stages of internet architecture including transmission infrastructure, topographic structure, and logic to create his journey to the center of the internet. He goes on to tell the reader about his different trips, which were focused on gaining a deeper understanding of the Internet. He vividly describes each of his trips so that readers can get a clear image in their heads, and he even sometimes writes about the technical details that might not always be the most interesting for those who might not know as much about computers. I thought it was interesting that Blum described the creation of the Internet by using locations and real world experiences. Not to mention, he does a really great job at explaining why these certain locations, such as Frankfurt and London's Docklands, have become such an important part of the Internet's development.
He does this by referring to some the encounters he had with different people and inventors. An example of this would be when he goes to Silicon Valley and meets the man who persuaded telecommunication companies to expand into the Palo Alto Internet Exchange by telling him that his rivals had already done so. By talking about the different people that the author has encountered, as well as the technological details, the message Blum is trying to create becomes