Understanding Hypermedia is an intelligent and lavishly illustrated tour de (electromotive) force. Equally well-suited to a reference library or a coffee table, this book effectively summarizes the entire domain of interactive digital multimedia in 160 or so oversize color pages. For an old-style, two-dimensional, paper-based book limited to just graphics and text, it does one heck of a job of viscerally - even virtually - evoking the products, platforms, and programs that it describes and predicts.
The book's two British authors broadly define "hypermedia" as "interactive programmes in which information is stored in a number of different media and organized so that it can be retrieved and presented in a variety of ways that amplify meaning for the user."
The book itself begins with a historical review of hypermedia, including an innovative "chronofile" charting the development of the main forms of media over the last 200 years or so, and a number of nicely illustrated vignettes on such hypermedia luminaries as Vannevar Bush, Douglas Engelbart, Ted Nelson, and Alan Kay. Following a brief sociological interlude (from McLuhan to William Gibson) is a technical discussion of the components of hypermedia, and then a reasonably detailed discussion of programming and design. The book finishes up with a robust survey of existing products and platforms. For those with professional interests in hypermedia, exposure to a number of European products may prove especially valuable.
Digital convergence fosters obsolescence. But even as Understanding Hypermedia grows out-of-date, its exemplary design, utility as a reference volume, and reasonable cost will long make it a book worth having. In short, this is a beautiful, informative, and thought-provoking work; when we get to the point where the presentation power of a book like this can be matched or surpassed by a PDA or even a sub-notebook, then the age of hypermedia will have truly arrived.
- Jordan Gruber
Understanding Hypermedia: US$25. Phaidon Press Ltd: 140 Kensington Church St., London W8 4BN UK.
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