The digital flood : the diffusion of information technology across the U.S. Europe and Asia No technology has spread around the world as fast as computers. Even before the internet information technologies had diffused to dozens of countries all over the world and had already begun to fundamentally alter how businesses governments and whole societies functioned. In The Digital Flood historian James W. Cortada is the first to offer a world wide history of how computers appeared and were used in North America Europe and most of Asia in barely a half century. He shoes how other conditions not just the technology itself fostered the spread of computers such as standards of living education the Cold War and economic globalization. Based on archival and secondary research extensive use of economic data and detailed country case studies of over a dozen nations Cortada tells the history of how computers were discovered invented built and used and the consequences for whole regions. Cortada argues that by now these technologies are the glue that holds together todays economies and that they are improving the lives of over a billion people who are moving into the middle class. This is the first attempt by any expert to write a global history of information technologies and how they spread. It is an indispensable resource for those who want to understand what is happening today in India China and other emerging economies as the Computer Revolution continues and it offers invaluable insights for historians economists public officials and business executives. Jacket