The Computer Age offers the first thorough examination of the growing importance of the computer in our way of life. It documents the proposition, slyly offered, that if the computer did not exist today it would have to be invented. More beneficial than the printing press or the wheel... than the steam engine or the dynamo and electric power to say nothing of atomic power? An impressive case can be made for putting the computer at the top of the list says Gilbert Burck. He presents here the realities and future possibilities of the electronic digital computer and answers the haunting questions: Will the computer outwit man? The Computer Age tells of the companies that have pioneered in the sophisticated use the computer. And it reports on the great competitive battle among computer manufactures fighting for larger for a market dominated by fortress I.B.M.