Was the internet inevitable? [Reflections]

Many novels have portrayed alternative versions of history, such as Robert Harris's Fatherland: A Novel (originally published by Hutchison, 1992) or Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle (first published by Putnam, 1962). In both books the Axis powers are victorious in World War II, and the world today is dramatically different. However, in spite of technology's role in shaping history, there appear to be few books in which history is altered by imagined changes in technological innovation. An exception is the 1991 novel by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, The Difference Engine (first edition by Bantam Books), in which Charles Babbage perfects a steam-driven analytical engine and the information age arrives a century earlier.