even though the early history of the internet was clearly an american one, europe also has a story to tell. in 1968 not only the american arpanet existed, but also the british "npl network” at the national physical laboratory (npl). it was in 1970 when larry roberts, the head of us-arpanet at the time and donald davis from the national physical laboratory thought about bringing these two networks together in a transcontinental connection.

the idea was that the connection should be made using a telephone line, one already in existence between washington and kjeller, near oslo, for collecting seismic data. however, there were problems with that plan. donald davies received a call to build an european version of a network: the european informatics network and peter kirstein from university college london became his substitute. at this time america was at war in vietnam, but still that wasn't the main problem peter kirstein had to cope with.

"europeans don't worry about national things like that", kirstein says. the real problem was that the uk government has just announced it was joining the european community and was trying to get into the common market. that made europe good and the us bad from a governmental policy standpoint.”

gabriel tarde, laws of imitation

1. The origination of an invention involves the recombination of existing imitations, and this origination will be influenced by the social context and abilities of those involved with the recombination.

2. The success of an imitation in spreading geometrically from its point of origination will be a function of its fit, that is, compatibility, with the environment of existing imitations.

3. The selection, that is, adoption of an imitation occurs either through "substitution" involving a "logical dual" and "struggle" between two alternatives, or through "accumulation", a process entailing a logical union of imitations.

It could be argued that a thinker of networks before their time could not transform his intuitions into data, because the material world he was interested in was not there yet to provide him with any empirical grasp.(gabriel tarde and the end of the social)

materials about the early days of networking

the french version of a network: cyclades, a technical history. includes material about rand/baran, npl, arpanet, tcp/ip (pre1980)

the internet archive contains a brought collection of interviews, quotes and materials about the arpanet.