Reading
Nils Nilsson, The Quest for Artificial Intelligence: A History of Ideas and Achievements, Cambridge University Press (2010).
A founder's history. Nilsson was there for most of it. Read chapters 4-8 for the symbolic era; chapters 21-24 for the transition to learning. The book is honest about what failed and why — the tone of an insider who watched two winters.
Reading
Primary and secondary sources for this lesson.