Tries to make an arcane subject accessible ... It remains to be seen if Empire of the Sum will turn the history of base-10 numeration into a forbidden pleasure ... Houston’s narrative is full of oddballs, many of them brilliant, some of them brilliant and insufferable ... There are thorny stretches ... I do wish that, once in a while, Houston climbed to a higher altitude, leaving behind the details of computational innovation to ask what all that innovation was for.
In a book that’s long on technical details and short on compelling anecdotes, Mr. Houston’s profile of Herzstark is a notable highlight ... The rest of Mr. Houston’s intermittently fascinating account is a creation story of tech breakthroughs begetting first-of-their-kind digital calculators.
He charts the development of the pocket calculator, delivering a fascinating, witty tale ... An entertaining, informative story about a technology that defined an era.
