Cyberculture

by Pierre Lévy,
University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2001
259 pp., Trade, $44.95 paper, $17.95
ISBN: 0-81663609-5; ISBN: 0-81663610-9

Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen
Hogeschool Gent
Jan Delvinlaan 115, 9000 Gent, Belgium

stefaan.vanryssen@pandora.be

The original of this classic on cyberculture dates from 1997 already. This translation from the French certainly doesn't come too soon. The main question is then: why should you read it? Wouldn't a book from the early days of the Net, written at the dawn of the Internet bubble and in a tone that is somewhere in between ecstatic and jubilant leave you with a bad taste? Wouldn't you put it down after some twenty pages, smiling wrily and thinking of better days when your dot com shares were still worth more than the paper they are printed on? Here are two or three good reason why you should (re)read it. Depending on your level of sophistication, you can pick any or all of them.

First, if you are not blasé yet and old enough to be a migrant in cybercountry, meaning that you have not been born with a wetness-sensing chip in your diapers to alarm your family robot that you need a change, you should read Cyberculture simply because it is the most lucid, straightforward and readable overview of the ensemble of technological and social changes the Net has brought about. Remember that the book was written for the dinocrats of the Council of Europe, most of whom hadn't even heard of networked computers before, so it is very easy to understand and it offers a good balance between the dark side and the good side of the 'Force'.

Secondly, if you are a historian of cyberspace and cyberculture, it is an important source, an 'event' in the Foucauldian sense of the word. Cyberspace and cyberculture were coming to the front of the stage and the discourse on the phenomenon was quickly taking shape. The French were not as tardy in adopting the Net as is commonly believed. In academic, and certainly in sociologic circles, it came as no surprise because its workings and the effects it had were absolutely in line with projections about the nature of reality and truth that had been made by the (in)famous postmodern philosophers. The European view of the Internet was shaped by people like Lévy, and it contrasted with the American view because it didn't stress the pragmatic and the commercial in the first place. So, as a historian, you should be aware of what happened out there.

Thirdly, if your shares have plummeted, you should keep in mind that the Internet is more than just a technology, that there is life after 2001 and that there are some things that have changed for once and for all, even if some say that we are returning to business as usual. Reading Lévy is like having a dinner of roasted meat, patotoes and Yorkshire pudding after having sat at gourmet tables for five years. You definitely enjoy the simplicity and you just don't care about your cholesterol. Take another helping!