This Is for Everyone

Who is the greatest living Englishman? It would be hard to argue against the merits of Tim Berners-Lee

Stephen Fry

As a company running computer networks before the dawn of the internet age, Bloomberg was an early beneficiary of the towering wave of change that Tim Berners-Lee ushered in with the World Wide Web. His book offers a fascinating look at the origin and evolution of a world-transforming invention and how we can harness its potential as a force for good

Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg and Bloomberg Philanthropies and mayor of New York, 2002–2013

Charming, clever, self-effacing, interesting and thoughtful . . . You finish reading This Is for Everyone wishing that somehow the Cleggs and Zuckerbergs of this world would vanish, and that Facebook and the rest of social media could be run by Berners-Lee

Naomi Alderman, The Observer

Tim Berners-Lee’s invention of the World Wide Web is a landmark event of the last fifty years – and his tireless work to keep the web accessible to everyone is a service to humanity. In this absorbing, entertaining and all-important book, Berners-Lee tells the story of the web’s genesis, reckons with its evolution and offers urgent and visionary guidance for its future

Darren Walker, president of Ford Foundation and author of From Generosity to Justice

Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s powerful memoir takes us on a guided tour through the creation and evolution of the web by the inventor himself with a humble, gripping, inspiring personal story. This is not just a history; it’s an extraordinary personal testament to human and technological potential and a critical reminder that as AI begins to even more dramatically transform our lives, we must work, as Tim does, to ensure that technology is built to nurture creativity, collaboration and compassion for all

Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer of Alphabet and Google

How lucky we are that the first new major application built on top of the generative internet was Tim Berners-Lee’s brainchild, the web. The web’s affordances reflect Tim’s extraordinary brilliance, his deeply humanistic values and his humble outlook, and this book represents a definitive account of just how it worked. This Is for Everyone is both eye-opening memoir and stirring manifesto: the inventor’s sketch of how we got here and a road map for where we might still go, if we choose wisely

Jonathan Zittrain, cofounder of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University; and author of The Future of the Internet—And How to Stop It

Tim Berners-Lee’s This Is for Everyone offers rare insight into how world-changing technology is born and why the values behind innovation matter as much as the invention itself. His unwavering commitment to accessibility and compassion in scientific development resonates deeply with anyone working to democratize transformative tools. Every scientist and technologist should read this to understand how individual choices can reshape humanity’s future

Jennifer Doudna, Nobel laureate and CRISPR pioneer

Fascinating . . . What is clear from reading [Berners-Lee's] book is that, were we all to follow this remarkable man’s lead, the world – both online and IRL – would be a better, safer, happier place

The i newspaper

An engaging history of the origins and evolution of the web and an ingenious road map for how we can reclaim control over our digital lives

Financial Times

Enlightening . . . A remarkable book by a remarkable man

Mail on Sunday

Berners-Lee’s history of the internet and the World Wide Web is lucid and moving . . . Berners-Lee thinks that we are engaged in nothing less than a “battle for the soul of the web”, and his proposals for a human-centred web that fosters technological innovation while protecting our privacy are civilized, practical and reasonable. Is anyone in government listening?

TLS