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This Is For Everyone: Review

This Is For Everyone by Sir Tim Berners-Lee is nonfiction, but it still manages to fit in three acts: a memoir of his life, family, and marriages; a history of the inception and nurturing of the World Wide Web; and a promotion of his latest effort to protect personal data from overreaching corporations. Having been active in the web technology from soon after its creation, I was very interested to learn "how the sausage was made." The bulk of book focuses on the various twists and turns that took place at CERN, the W3C, and beyond. What today seems inevitable had several existential crises along the way. Since the book moves largely in chronological order, his latest endeavor comes at the end. While fascinating, it is a commercial offering and therefore the last part feels more like a low-key advertisement, the only tonal blemish in an otherwise even and frequently inspiring work.

I listened to the audio book, and found it moved at a good pace. The bulk of the book and its central stories are compelling on several levels. They give a good, accessible perspective on why the web is built the way it is. They show how to structure key architectural decisions in a large standards-based software project to ensure longevity. Furthermore, they show the importance of having a network of trusted colleagues to build something bigger than one person could create alone. Overall I strongly recommend this book, especially to people who are involved with web technology, or simply want to learn more about it.

Rating:

Recommend? Yes
Buy as a gift? Yes, especially for those interested in the technical founding and future of the web

Last modified on 5 Feb 2026 by AO