The title is misleading--unless the greatest technology stories, with one exception, all occurred in the 20th century and involved computers or were precursors to them, like the transistor. You do get the stories of how IBM, TI, Intel, Apple and Microsoft came to be, with repeated drive-bys of Xerox's PARC lab (wasn't photocopying a great technology story?).

As many times as you've read the Microsoft story, this account will probably straighten out any confusion about Bill Gates and Paul Allen's early days with BASIC and that company in New Mexico.

The one exception has to do with the background to the break-up of the AT & T monopoly--telecom deregulation. It starts with one of those dogged guys--visionaries, I guess--who wanted to set up a means of communication for truckers going up and down Illinois. A private telephone service. This actually seems less a technology than a fight against government inertia and a corporate monolith. It's really just a good primer on how we got to be where we are today, the distinctions between carriers and equipment owners and what have you.

However, what a sloggish writer. Most of it is like reading encyclopedia entries. Hard to believe that Young was a journalist for Forbes. Surely he could have interviewed some of his subjects or talked to colleagues. There have to be loads of secondary materials on, say, IBM. Hell, maybe he did interview some of the principals and it just didn't show up on the page. No colorful quotes of the moments of discoveries, memories of arguments, dead ends or higher-ups to convince.

However again, If this book were assigned in a high school or college class, the writing would be considered quite lucid by students. It's not quite as stodgy as a textbook. ( )