Turing and the Universal Machine (Icon Science) (Paperback)

The Making of the Modern Computer

Jon Agar

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The history of the computer is entwined
with that of the modern world and with the life of one man, the brilliant but
troubled Alan Turing.

How did the computer come to structure
and dominate our lives so totally? In Jon Agar’s enlightening story of the
‘universal machine’, we discover how Turing’s groundbreaking work not only
helped break German codes during the Second World War but also founded the beginnings
of the modern computer.

Persecuted by the authorities for his
homosexuality, and ultimately hounded to suicide, Turing’s personal
tribulations are as relevant to the modern world as his work on computing, as
indicated by his posthumous royal pardon of 2013 and the recent film The Imitation Game, which focuses on
Turing’s turbulent life.

Jon Agar is Professor of Science and Technology Studies at University College London, where he teaches history of science and technology. He is also the author of Science in the Twentieth Century and Beyond (Polity, 2012) and Constant Touch: a Global History of the Mobile Phone (Icon, second edition 2012).