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From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog: A History of the Software Industry. By Martin Campbell-Kelly. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003. xvi, 372 pp. $29.95, ISBN 0-262-03303-8.)
I tried to do it and thought it could not be done. But Martin Campbell-Kelly has written a highly useful, arguably seminal, history of one of the world's most important industries. Overcoming many research hurdles, Campbell-Kelly has created a scholarly yet highly readable book on the software industry that is suitable for use in undergraduate and graduate computer, information systems, and business history courses. It will also prove attractive to the general public, and it will serve as an important springboard for further research.
Campbell-Kelly's focus is justifiably on the United States and on the period from the mid-1950s to approximately 1995. The United States was the...