Vint Cerf

New Zealander Brian E. Carpenter is a former Chair of the Internet Society’s Board of Trustees (2000-2002). He led the networking group at CERN during the period that Tim Berners-Lee developed the World Wide Web. He is a leading figure in the history and work of the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). In other words he’s one of those many fathers of the Internet, one who has worked diligently over the years to make it what is today. He has now authored a book describing that process – Network Geeks – How They Built the Internet (Springer, 2013).

From the blurb:

Part history, part memoir and part cultural study, Network Geeks charts the creation of the Internet and the establishment of the Internet Engineering Task Force, from the viewpoint of a self-proclaimed geek who witnessed these developments first-hand. With boundless enthusiasm and abundant humour, Brian Carpenter leads the reader on a journey from post-war Britain to post-millennium New Zealand, describing how the Internet grew into today’s ubiquitous, global network, including the genesis of the World-Wide Web in the hotbeds of a particle collider at CERN. Illuminating the science and technology behind the apparent “magic trick” of the Internet, Network Geeks opens a window into the initially bewildering world of the Internet engineering geek. After reading this book, you may wish to join this world yourself

And Vint Cerf himself says:

This is a geek page-turner! I learned much about the European side of the Internet’s history that I did not know in detail and a lot about Brian himself, too. I don’t know how he remembered so much in detail!

The book is available in paperback or kindle editions from AMAZON: http://www.amazon.com/Network-Geeks-They-Built-Internet/dp/1447150244/