History Books. There are some I can recommend.

On Doug specifically, there is:

Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the Origins of Personal Computing by Thierry Bardini

The Fourth Discontinuity by Bruce Mazlish
People aren't separate from their machine. It's that simple.

On the history of the web:

Weaving the Web. The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by its Inventor by Tim Berners Lee
The story and insights from the creation of the World Wide Web by the man himself. Excellent.

On the history of computer technology:

Tools for thought by Howard Rheingold [Available at: http://www.well.com/user/hlr/texts/tftindex.html]
An exciting and inspirational history of computers. Introduced me to Doug for the first time.

A Brief History of the Future: From Radio Days to Internet Years in a Lifetime by John Naughton
Is also an excellent and engaging history.

A look into a possible future shows some of the posibilities:

The Age Of The Spiritual Machine by Ray Kurzweil
Ray Kurzweil simply extrapolates Moore's Law into the next century, with profound consequences.

A broader, entertaingin history of knowledge:

A History of Knowledge by Charles Van Doren
"The Cosmic Source of Human Creativity". " A book of many "Hmmm...'s" For example; "The Inca never discovered writing". Hmmm.... It serves to remind us, amongst other things, that 'interface' issues didn't just appear when PC's came on the scene.

Going further back:

The Day Before Yesterday by Colin Tudge. Called "The Time Before History" on Amazon.
Stopped me in my tracks. When I read about India crashing in to Asia changing the worlds climate, what we now so narrow-mindedly call pre-history came alive. It helps me think beyond my current projects... The descriptions of evolution is also eye opening. Very much so in fact.

 

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