This Palgrave Pivot analyzes how six countries in Central AmericaCosta Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panamaconnected to and through computer networks such as UUCP, BITNET and the Internet from the 80s to the year 2000. It argues that this story can only be told from a transnational perspective. To connect to computer networks, Central America built a regional integration project with great implications for its development. By revealing the beginnings of the Internet in this part of the world, this study broadens our understanding of the development of computer networks in the global south. It also demonstrates that transnational flows of knowledge, data, and technologies are a constitutive feature of the historical development of the Internet.

Ignacio Siles is a professor of media and technology studies in the School of Communication, and a researcher in the Centro de Investigación en Comunicación (CICOM) at the University of Costa Rica. He is the author ofNetworked Selves: Trajectories of Blogging in the United States and France (2017) andPor un sueño en.red.ado: Una historia de Internet en Costa Rica (2008). 

1. "Follow the Networks".- 2. Matters of Central American Integration (1960s1990s).- 3. The Founding Networks of Central America.- 4. An Internet for the Global South.- 5. A Central American Internet.- 6. Internet and Integration in the Era of Privatization.- 7. The Inconclusive Project of Technological Integration.