The Wikipedia Revolution (book review)
The making of a know-it-all
The Wikipedia Revolution
Andrew Lih
Hyperion, 272 pp., $24.99
Reviewed by Elizabeth Willse for the Star-Ledger, March 14th, 2009
“The Wikipedia Revolution” examines the history of one of the internet’s most popular sites by digging into the origins of encyclopedias and the evolution of the technology that made a user-generated online encyclopedia possible.
Andrew Lih’s history is far-ranging, chronicling the origins of encyclopedias, computers and online communities, and the volunteers who maintain Wikipedia. Like Wikipedia itself, this book attempts to wrangle many disparate elements into one definitive account. Confining the history of something so large as Wikipedia into a single book is an ambitious project.
Those accustomed to computer culture will enjoy the wealth of technical history packed into this narrative. Curious readers without a tech-savvy background may be baffled by the onslaught of acronyms, and the detailed descriptions of the phases of computer and Internet history that set the stage for Wikipedia.
Although Lih touches on major players like CEO Jimmy Wales, Ward Cunningham and others who laid the groundwork for Wikipedia, they are as much ciphers as the code they write. Lih offers a few broad brushstrokes of biography and their ideas for the Wikipedia project, but those anecdotes zip past in his hurry to get to the next person who shaped some aspect of the project.
Describing the earliest history of encyclopedias, and the more recent history of Wikipedia, complete with user meets and heated editing wars, Lih’s prose becomes more accessible to a wider audience.
Throughout the project and Lih’s narrative, the accuracy of Wiki entries is a concern as more users contribute. Lih acknowledges it’s an evolving, imperfect system for the community to monitor and maintain neutral bias. Lih’s conclusions, including suggestions for Wikipedia’s continued evolution, seem well-reasoned. However, it’s ultimately strange to read a finished book about a constantly evolving, user-generated collaborative internet encyclopedia.
