The New Era -- The Path to the Modern Computer -- The Development of the Post-War Period -- IT and Economy -- IT and Politics -- The Reinvention of Crime -- The Future Agenda.

Modern information technology permeates and transforms our world—far more intensely than most of us realize. The book describes its origin, history, and essential drivers. It elaborates on the substantial importance the new world power of IT has gained for our social, economic, and political lives. It provides the reader with interesting, easily understandable, and balanced guidance on a complex topic. It highlights major development lines and explains concepts such as artificial intelligence, algorithms, and blockchains. Dr. Jürgen Müller studied history and political science in Trier, Vienna, and Rome, and then "accidentally" found his way into IT. He has spent more than 30 years there, primarily in Europe and the USA. In this book, he combines his extensive international experience in the computer industry with humanities-related questions, resulting in a very rare and worthwhile synthesis. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence. A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content. This book is a translation of an original German edition. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation.