Critique Paper of Aspray/Campbell Kelly and McCraw
I wonder sometime how hard people were living before. I can not even imagine myself without a computer for one full day. However, we have easier life today because of what have happened in the history, such as computer evolution or the business development. We can say that there have been significant changes in the world now compared to before. Many books are written to show us how different is our world today contrast to earlier in the history. Some of those book are Campbell Kelly and William Aspray “ Computer: A History of the Information Machine” or McCraw “ American Business since 1920”.
Campbell Kelly and William Aspray “ Computer: A History of the Information Machine” focus on the development of computer that start from the nineteenth century. From Charles Babbages computer and the laptop I am writing on now, we can see an enormous changed in computer evolution since nineteenth century. In four parts, Kelly and Aspray highlight the path of computer development. The first parts focus on “before the computer” in which they describe the scientific and technical idea behind computing. In this part, they mentioned two important figures in the computer evolution such as Babbage who invented the analytical engine and Herman Hollerith who invented tabulating systems. The part two focus on “Creating the Computer” which details the inventions and early development and use of computers. It also states the importance of IBM as a computer vendor. After “Creating the Computer”, the part three shows the “Innovation and Expansion” of computers. It explains the transformation of computer from the mainframe to the personal computer. At the end, the section four is about “ Getting Personal”. It talks about chronicles developments from graphical user interfaces to the World Wide Web.
McCraw “ American Business since 1920” is a three chapters book that trace the development of American Business since the First World War. The American businesses have seen significant development since the First World War. McCraw uses companies such as Ford and General Motors, Procter and Gamble, RCA and color television and McDonalds in his examples to show the business evolution. In his book, McCraw first talk about the evolution of consumer goods industries during the 1920s in which he mentioned
