The internet, like its big sister, the electronic computer, is a Little Frankenstein of the Cold War – one of the countless bright ideas brought shuddering to life with the financial backing of the US military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the feverish aftermath of the launching of Sputnik, the world’s first man-made satellite, by the Soviet Union in 1957. And why did the US military finance the research and development of a medium that would, thirty years down the track, turn the Amazon into a cheap place to buy books and forever pervert the meaning of a humble can of Spam? In a word: Armageddon.

It was hoped the Internet would provide an alternative means of communication, should the Soviets and the US actually have that Dr Strangelove moment. After all, if the Russians could send Sputnik into orbit, what else were they capable of? With that in mind, in 1965 the TX-2 computer in Massachusetts was connected to the Q-32 computer in California via a phone line, creating the world’s first wide-area computer network. The event was more of a dial tone than a big bang, but a landmark nonetheless – the Internet had been conceived. Cold War. Space race. Arms race. As the tale of its creation demonstrates, the Internet is a remarkable medium with a story to tell. But you wouldn’t know that from reading Virtual Nation: The Internet in Australia.