So, did the decade just end or do we have another year to go? Honestly, I’ve never understood when the cut-off is from one decade to the next. (My friend Larry Magid struggles with the same question in his recent column on “The Decade in Technology.”) Nonetheless, I’ve seen a lot of best-of-decade lists published recently, so I thought I would throw my own out there even though it is still a work in progress.

I have been attempting to compile the definitive bibliography for our digital decade—the definitive list of Internet policy books, that is. I started throwing this together two years ago when I was penning my list of “The Most Important Internet Policy Books of 2008” and continued to work on it as I was finishing up my 2009 installment as well. I grabbed every book off my shelf that dealt with the future of the Internet and the impact the Digital Revolution is having on our lives, culture, and economy and threw the title and a link onto this list. (I’m also using the list to help structure my thoughts for a forthcoming book of my own on Internet Optimists vs. Pessimists, something I’ve been writing a lot about here in recent years.)

Below you will find what I’ve got so far. There are around 80 90 books on the list. I’ve divided the list by year, but you may be wondering what determined the order the books appear in. In essence, I’ve listed what I feel are the 1 or 2 most important titles first and then just added others randomly. Eventually, I plan to post a “Most Important Internet Policy Books of the Decade” list outlining which titles I believe have been the most influential. I suspect I’ll name Benkler’s Wealth of Networks to the top slot followed closely by Zittrain’s The Future of the Internet, Lessig’s Free Culture, and Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail. Anyway, that’s for another day.

For now, I would just like to ask for reader suggestions regarding what other titles that should appear on this list. I will add titles as they come in. I want to stress, however, that I am trying to keep this list limited to books that have something to say about Internet policy (cyber-law, digital economics, information technology politics, etc).

I hope others find this useful.  And yes, I have read all* most of the books on this list!  As I’ve noted here before, I’m a bit of book nerd.  (*Now that I’ve received so many helpful additions to the list, there are some titles on the list I have not had a chance to read through yet).

2000

• George Gilder – Telecosm: How Infinite Bandwidth Will Revolutionize Our World
• Christopher T. Marsden (ed.) – Regulating the Global Information Society
• Bruce Schneier – Secrets & Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World

2001

• Cass Sunstein – Republic.com
• Lawrence Lessig – The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World
• Michael Lewis – Next: The Future Just Happened
• Debora L. Spar – Ruling the Waves: Cycles of Discovery, Chaos, and Wealth form the Compass to the Internet
• Siva Vaidhyanathan – Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How it Threatens Creativity
• Jessica Litman – Digital Copyright
• Manuel Castells – The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society
• Steven Levy – Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government–Saving Privacy in the Digital Age
• Jeffrey H. Rohlfs – Bandwagon Effects in High-Technology Industries
• Marjorie Heins – Not in Front of the Children: “Indecency,” Censorship and the Innocence of Youth
• National Research Council – Youth, Pornography and the Internet
• National Research Council – Global Networks and Local Values
• Paulina Borsook – Cyberselfish: A Critical Romp Through the Terribly Libertarian Culture of High Tech

2002

• David Weinberger – Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web
• Howard Reingold – Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
• Milton L. Mueller – Ruling the Root: Internet Governance and the Taming of Cyberspace
• Richard A. Spinello – Regulating Cyberspace: The Policies and Technologies of Control
• Stan Liebowitz – Re-Thinking the Network Economy: The True Forces that Drive the Digital Marketplace
• Adam D. Thierer & Clyde Wayne Crews (eds.) – Copy Fights: The Future of Intellectual Property in the Information Age

2003

• Mike Godwin – Cyber Rights : Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age
• Lorrie Faith Cranor & Steven S. Wildman (eds.) – Rethinking Rights and Regulations: Institutional Responses to New Communication Technologies
• Adam D. Thierer & Clyde Wayne Crews (eds.) – Who Rules the Net?: Internet Governance and Jurisdiction
• Shanthi Kalathil & Taylor C. Boas –Open Networks, Closed regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule
• William Landes and Richard Posner – The Economic Structure of Intellectual Property Law

2004

• Lawrence Lessig – Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity
• Dan Gillmor – We the Media: Grassroots Journalism By the People, For the People
• William W. Fisher – Promises to Keep: Technology, Law, and the Future of Entertainment
• Joe Trippi – The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, The Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything
• Siva Vaidhyanathan –  The Anarchist in the Library: How the Clash between Freedom and Control is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System
• Steven Weber – The Success of Open Source
• Alexander R. Galloway – Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization
• Michael A. Einhorn – Media, Technology, and Copyright: Integrating Law and Economics

2005

• John Battelle – The Search: How Google and its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture
• Edward Castronova – Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games
• Jonathan E. Nuechterlein & Philip J. Weiser – Digital Crossroads: American Telecommunications Policy in the Internet Age

2006

• Yochai Benkler – The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
• Chris Anderson – The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
• Jack Goldsmith & Tim Wu – Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World
• Henry Jenkins – Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide
• Lawrence Lessig – Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace, Version 2.0
• Cass Sunstein – Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge
• Daniel J. Solove, Marc Rotenberg & Paul M. Schwartz – Privacy, Information and Technology
• Ori Brafman & Rod A. Beckstrom – The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations

2007

• Andrew Keen – The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing our Culture
• Daniel Solove – The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet
• Glenn Reynolds – An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths
• David Weinberger – Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder
• National Research Council – Toward a Safer and More Secure Cyberspace
• Tarleton Gillespie – Wired Shut: Copyright and the Shape of Digital Culture
• Steve Talbott – Devices of the Soul: Battling for Our Selves in an Age of Machines
• Jeff Chester – Digital Destiny: New Media and the Future of Democracy
• Nancy E. Willard – Cyber-Safe Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens: Helping Young People Learn to Use the Internet Safely and Responsibly

2008

• Jonathan Zittrain – The Future of the Internet – And How to Stop It
• John Palfrey & Urs Gasser – Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives
• Clay Shirky – Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations
• Nick Carr – The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google
• Ronald J. Deibert, John G. Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski, and Jonathan Zittrain (eds.) – Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering
• Daniel Solove – Understanding Privacy
• Jeanne Pia Mifsud Bonnici – Self-Regulation in Cyberspace
• James Bessen and Michael J. Meurer – Patent Failure: How Judges, Bureaucrats, and Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk
• Michele Boldrin & David K. Levine – Against Intellectual Monopoly
• Don Tapscott & Anthony D. Williams – Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
• Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen, and Harry Lewis – Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion
• Lee Siegel – Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob
• Lawrence Lessig – Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy
• David Singh Grewal – Network Power: The Social Dynamics of Globalization
• Michael Heller – The Gridlock Economy: How Too Much Ownership Wrecks Markets, Stops Innovation, and Costs Lives
• Matt Mason – The Pirate’s Dilemma: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism
• David Friedman – Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World
• Cory Doctorow — Content
• Don Tapscott — Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World
• Neil Netanel – Copyright’s Paradox
• Mark Bauerlein- The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30)

2009

• Chris Anderson – Free: The Future of a Radical Price
• Larry Downes – The Laws of Disruption: Chaos and Control in Your Virtual Future
• Dawn C. Nunziato – Virtual Freedom: Net Neutrality and Free Speech in the Internet Age
• David Bollier – Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own
• David Post – In Search of Jefferson’s Moose: Notes on the State of Cyberspace
• Dennis Baron – A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers, and the Digital Revolution
• Mark Helprin – Digital Barbarism: A Writer’s Manifesto
• William Patry – Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars
• John Freeman – The Tyranny of E-Mail: The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to Your Inbox
• Gary Reback – Free the Market!  Why Only Government Can Keep the Marketplace Competitive
• Lee A. Bygrave & Jon Bing (eds) – Internet Governance: Infrastructure and Institutions
• Manuel Castells – Communication Power
• Tyler Cowen – Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity in a Disordered World
• Randall Stross – Planet Google: One Company’s Audacious Plan to Organize Everything We Know
• Ken Auletta – Googled: The End of the World As We Know It
• Jeff Jarvis – What Would Google Do?
• John W. Dozier Jr. and Sue Scheff – Google Bomb
• James Boyle – The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind
• Scott Rosenberg – Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming, and Why It Matters
• Erik Brynjolfsson & Adam Saunders – Wired for Innovation: How Information Technology is Reshaping the Economy
• Matthew Scott Hindman –The Myth of Digital Democracy

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UPDATE (Dec. 2010): If you believe 2010 should be included in this list, here’s a list of the major books from that year.

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