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Thus begins a review of the History of Cybernetics and Systems Science at:

It has been preserved and made available through the kind efforts of the Cybernetics Society UK.

The article can be accessed at:

"Following Bateson, it is my conviction that the patterns of organization and symmetry embodied in living systems are indicative of mental process; and, that the cybernetic paradigm--with its focus on communication and information as the key elements of the self-regulation and self-organization--best exemplifies these hierarchical patterns of epistemic organization."

The article can be accessed at:

"Following Bateson, it is my conviction that the patterns of organization and symmetry embodied in living systems are indicative of mental process; and, that the cybernetic paradigm--with its focus on communication and information as the key elements of the self-regulation and self-organization--best exemplifies these hierarchical patterns of epistemic organization."

The article can be accessed as a PDF (Adobe Acrobat Reader) file at:

R.A. Meyers (ed.), Encyclopedia of Physical Science & Technology , Vol. 4 (3rd ed.), New York: Academic Press, 2001, p. 155-170.

This article provides a good summary overview of both cybernetics' history and the distinct 'flavors' of cybernetics research since the 1940's.

The article can be accessed as a PDF (Adobe Acrobat Reader) file at:

The article can be accessed (as a PDF file) at:

Steve Joshua Heims
MIT Press, paperback edition - 1993
ISBN: 026258123X

From the Preface:

"The subject of this book is the series of multidisciplinary conferences, supported by the Macy Foundation and held between 1946 and 1953, to discuss a wide array of topics that eventually came to be called cybernetics. ... The cybernetics conferences and attendant events form a complex story, and I have tried to include only a portion of it in this book. I have chosen to focus on researchers in psychology, anthropology, sociology, and psychiatry rather than on the engineers, biologists, and mathematicians."

Review available online (as a PDF file) at:

http://web.mit.edu/esd.83/www/notebook/HeimsReview.pdf

Until recently, this book stood alone as a reference resource on the Macy Conferences, their participants, and the story of how the field of cybernetics coalesced. It remains the single best source of historical data on the 1940's / Macy period.

Jean-Pierre Dupuy
(Translated by M. B. Debevoise)
Princeton University Press, 2000
ISBN: 0691025746

Sample chapter (Introduction) available online at:

http://pup.princeton.edu/chapters/i6920.html

From the Introduction:

"From 1946 to 1953 ten conferences ... brought together at regular intervals some of the greatest minds of the twentieth century. ... The mathematicians, logicians, engineers, physiologists, neurophysiologists, psychologists, anthropologists, and economists who took part set themselves the task of constructing a general science of how the human mind works. What brought them together, what they discussed, and what came of a collaboration unique in the history of ideas--these things form the subject of the present volume."

Review available online (as a PDF file) at:

http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/ezequiel/dupuy.pdf

This book offers an alternative perspective to Heims' seminal history. Whereas Heims focuses on the cybernetics group in terms of their generating a new social science, Dupuy focuses on the descent of 'cognitive science' from cybernetics. Dupuy is considerably more critical than Heims, but his contextualization of cybernetics vis a vis the rise of cognitivism and prevailing philosophical trends adds a depth of conceptual analysis one can't get from Heims' book.

David A. Mindell
Johns Hopkins University Press - 2002
ISBN: 0801868955

From Book News, Inc.:

"Examining the work of several laboratories, including the U.S. Navy, Sperry Gyroscope and Bell Telephone, Mindell shows how the foundations for control engineering and computing were laid well before Norbert Wiener formalized the field of cybernetics in 1948. By way of his analysis, Mindell (history of engineering and manufacturing, MIT) offers a new way to conceptualize the history of computing and explores the ongoing relationship between humans and machines. Written for a technically savvy audience, this book may be of interest to historians of science, technology, and culture, as well as to computer scientists and theorists."

Mindell's book offers a detailed review of 20th century control engineering advances culminating in (e.g.) the work of Wiener, Rosenblueth, and Bigelow. It also blends in the background developments in communications and information research. It complements the Heims book by setting some background for the Macy period and telling the story of the engineers (whom Heims self-admittedly left outside his scope of concern).