about the cover illustration

The figure on the cover of Think Distributed Systems, captioned “Liburnienne,” or “Liburnian,” was published by Nepveu (Paris) in 1815 and is taken from a collection provided by Bibliothèque nationale de France. The Liburnians were an ancient tribe inhabiting the district called Liburnia, a coastal region of the northeastern Adriatic between the rivers Arsia (Raša) and Titius (Krka) in what is now Croatia. Each illustration is finely drawn and colored by hand.

In those days, it was easy to identify where people lived and what their trade or station in life was just by their dress. Manning celebrates the inventiveness and initiative of the computer business with book covers based on the rich diversity of regional culture centuries ago, brought back to life by pictures from collections such as this one.