The year the future started.

• Author: Gillespie, Nick
• Position: Soundbite - Conversation with college professor W. Joseph Campbell - Interview

In his compulsively readable new book, 1995, American University communications professor W. Joseph Campbell takes us back to what he calls "the year the future began." The Oklahoma City Bombing took place, ushering in the terror fears and security measures that would expand even further after 9/11. Coverage of the trial of O.J. Simpson for the murder of his ex-wife and Ronald Goldman birthed the 24-hour news cycle. The Dayton Peace Accords, which ended the Bosnian War, inflated a "hubris bubble" in U.S. foreign policy that would pop only after the long, unsuccessful interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. And Bill Clinton met Monica Lewinsky, an encounter whose endgame would cement partisan loyalties in the federal government and deeply undercut presidential stature.

Perhaps most important, says Campbell, who spoke with Reason TV's Nick Gillespie in February, 1995 was "the year of the Internet." Early iterations of Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, and Craigslist first appeared; Netscape held a record-breaking IPO; and the World Wide Web emerged as a mass medium.

For video of this interview, go to reason, com.

Q: Netscape doesn't even exist anymore! How big was the Netscape IPO in legitimating the Internet as something real and vital?

A: Netscape made a fantastic browser, but the company had only been in existence for less than two years when it had its IPO. It went through the roof, and the shares were incredibly valuable. Netscape showed that people could make money on the Internet. But more importantly, it illuminated the Web for a lot of people who weren't familiar with it.

Q: You suggest that Marc Andreessen, one of the co-founders of Netscape, was the first great Web star.

A: He really was. And he was only in his 20s, just out of college, when he co-founded Netscape. These guys were setting their own rules, and the Internet allowed people to do that, because nobody knew what this was going to look like.

Q: As the Web became popular, people freaked out and...