Mastering Unreal® Technology, Volume I

Chapter 1. Dawn of the Social Age

Historic eras by definition can be fully understood only with the passage of time. Perhaps you witnessed the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001. It was a singular event, but we now recognize that it foreshadowed the long, expensive, and painful “war on terror” in Iraq and elsewhere, and it led to a soul-searching re-evaluation of U.S. foreign policy. Perhaps in August 1981 you heard that IBM^® had introduced the personal computer, which made computing available to everyone for the first time—a singular event, but one that marked the beginning of one of the most remarkable eras in the history of humankind.

To better understand how we arrived at the Social Age, a brief overview of the shape ...