New Books in Technology
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network, an academic audio library dedicated to public education. Each episode features scholars discussing their recently published research with another expert in their field. The network offers over 150 channels and more than 28,000 episodes. Listeners can explore the full catalog on the New Books Network website and subscribe to a free weekly newsletter.
Episodes
Chinese EVs: From Nordic Streets to Central Asian Hubs
Can Europe afford to stand back as China rewrites the global electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem? In this episode, Julie Yu-Wen Chen at the University of Helsinki talks to United Nations Senior Adviser Matthew Gray for Europe and Central Asia Markets, who discusses the rapid international expansion of Chinese EVs. The conversation highlights how Chinese brands have moved beyond public buses to growing
The Tin Man Model of Running a Company Is Rusty
Phil Le-Brun and Jana Werner are enterprise strategists at Amazon Web Services, based in London. Phil was previously a corporate VP and international CIO at McDonalds. Jana was formerly at DHL and studied uncertainty dynamics in academia. They are authors of The Octopus Organization: A Guide to Thriving in a World of Continuous Transformation published by Harvard Business Review Press.
Octopu
Christian Martinez, "NYC Open Data Student Gallery" (Brooklyn College CUNY, 2026)
About NYC Open Data
During the Fall 2025 semester, students in the M.S. program in Psychological Research at Brooklyn College completed the inaugural offering of Reproducible Psychological Research. Using the R programming language, students developed weekly R Markdown documents to solve simulated real-world analytical problems using authentic datasets, with an emphasis on transparency, documenta
Thomas S. Mullaney, "How We Disappear: A Personal History of Information" (W. W. Norton, 2026)
This is the third time I have the great fortune of interviewing Tom Mullaney. I can hardly think of a more worthy ambassador for the history discipline, and the work we are discussing today, I believe, will serve as the perfect bridge from Tom’s historical scholarship to the wider, reading public. We are discussing Tom’s latest book, How We Disappear: A Personal History of Information (W.W. Norton
Jonathon W. Penney, "Chilling Effects: Repression, Conformity, and Power in the Digital Age" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
In Chilling Effects: Repression, Conformity, and Power in the Digital Age (Cambridge UP, 2025), Jonathon W. Penney explores the increasing weaponization of surveillance, censorship, and new technology to repress and control us. With corporations, governments, and extremist actors using big data, cyber-mobs, AI, and other threats to limit our rights and freedoms, concerns about chilling effects – o
Emily Doucet, "Inventing Nadar: A History of Photographic Firsts" (Duke UP, 2026)
Félix Nadar took the first aerial photograph in 1858, so the story goes. The evidence, Emily Doucet notes, is mixed. In Inventing Nadar: A History of Photographic Firsts (Duke UP, 2026), Doucet analyzes the historical and material production of the nineteenth-century Parisian photographer’s famous and numerous photographic firsts. Focusing on these oft-labeled groundbreaking elements of his caree
Margaret O’Mara on the Clintons, Tech, and Memory
We were joined by Professor Margaret O’Mara of the University of Washington, who had a front row seat to the Clinton campaign and went on to become an expert in the history of information technology and Silicon Valley.
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Ralph Jones, "Microphone" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
Since its invention more than 150 years ago, the microphone transformed the world in an instant. Yet its evolution and integration into our daily
lives has been comparatively gradual – so gradual, crucially, that it is easy to
forget just how much we take it for granted. As explored in Microphone (Bloomsbury, 2026) by Ralph Jones, every phone has a microphone. Every laptop has a microphone. We a
Turning IBM's Culture Massively Around
Phil Gilbert is best known for leading IBM’s transformation as their General Manager of Design, a project that updated the work of 400,000 IBM employees across 180 countries. The transformation became the subject of a Harvard Business School case study, the documentary film The Loop, and feature articles in the New York Times and Fortune magazine. Phil was inducted into the New York Foundation for
Rahul Mukherjee, "Unlimited: Aspirational Politics and Mobile Media Distribution" (MIT Press, 2026)
Around 2016, buoyed by so-called data kranti ("data revolution"), an aspirational neo-middle class of users in India accessed internet for the first time on their mobile phones. Unlimited: Aspirational Politics and Mobile Media Distribution (MIT Press, 2026) tells the story of digital infrastructures that are being created by state-corporations for content and money to move and reach such users.
Pedro Domingos, "The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World" (Basic Books, 2018)
In the world's top research labs and universities, the race is on to invent the ultimate learning algorithm: one capable of discovering any knowledge from data, and doing anything we want, before we even ask. In The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World (Basic Books, 2018), Pedro Domingos lifts the veil to give us a peek inside the learning machi
Learning Languages on Social Media
In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Brynn Quick speaks with Dr. Yeong Ju Lee about her new book Social Media and Language Learning: Using TikTok and Instagram (Routledge, 2025).
Lee, Y. J. (2025). Social Media and Language Learning: Using TikTok and Instagram. Taylor & Francis.
This book explores creative uses of social media for informal language learning. It focuses on the und
Gerald F. Davis, "Taming Corporate Power in the 21st Century" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
Information and communication technologies have fundamentally altered the markets for capital, labor, supplies, and distribution in ways that undermine the basic categories we use to understand the economy. Nationality, industry, firm, size, employee, and other fundamental terms are increasingly detached from the operations of the economy. If we want to understand and tame the new sources of econo
Aymar Jèan Escoffery, "Reparative Media: Cultivating Stories and Platforms to Heal Our Culture" (MIT Press, 2025)
Can producing stories and developing platforms to support people who have been harmed by multiple, intersecting systems heal those systems? In Reparative Media: Cultivating Stories and Platforms to Heal Our Culture (MIT Press, 2025), Aymar Jèan Escoffery argues that this is exactly how we repair our culture and heal harms from racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and religio
Angela I. Fritz, "AI and Digital Leadership: Transforming Libraries, Archives, and Museums for the Future" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
AI and Digital Leadership: Transforming Libraries, Archives, and Museums for the Future (Bloomsbury, 2026) explores how galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAMs) are navigating new leadership styles and organizational frameworks to help meet the challenges posed by a digital society. During this time of digital transformation, galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAMs) are facin
Angus Burgin on the Rise of the Internet
We were joined by Angus Burgin, Associate Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, and talked about how the arrival of the Internet remade life and politics in the 90s. Angus shared his thoughts on the motivations behind his upcoming book, which offers an intellectual history of the Internet.
Lee Vinsel is a professor in the Department of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech
Counter-Revolutionary Puzzles with Guillermo Badia
In this episode Pat speaks with Dr Guillermo Badia.
Dr Guillermo Badia is a philosopher working in logic. His research interests are logic in computer science, semiring-based logics and models of computation, and modal, intuitionistic and other non-classical logics.
They discuss logic, murder mysteries, and the counter revolutionary search for truth.
A transcript of this episode will be availab
Olivier Sylvain, "Recovering the Internet: How Big Tech Took Control-And How We Can Take It Back" (Columbia Global Reports, 2026)
Recovering the Internet: How Big Tech Took Control-And How We Can Take It Back (Columbia Global Reports, 2026)is an indictment of how Big Tech cloaks ruthless commercial exploitation in the language of free speech. Olivier Sylvain, a leading legal scholar and former senior advisor at the Federal Trade Commission, exposes the incentives behind social media design, revealing how they trap users in c
Patrick Brodie and Darin Barney eds., "Media Rurality" (Duke UP, 2026)
Media Rurality (Duke UP, 2026), edited by Darin Barney and Patrick Brodie, investigates the centrality of rural places and people within the media systems and technologies that shape daily life in and across rural and urban settings alike. Edited by Darin Barney and Patrick Brodie, from the boglands of Ireland to data centers in the Oregon countryside to the homemade media systems of rural Tanzani
A Shakeup Is Coming for the Nation-State: A Conversation with Stephen Sims
Stephen Sims’ New Atlantis essay examines how emerging technologies are reshaping the structure and authority of the modern nation-state. He argues that innovations such as artificial intelligence, drones, and networked warfare are weakening the traditional link between territorial control and the projection of power, enabling smaller actors to operate with unprecedented reach. At the same time, a
Roland Betancourt, "Disneyland and the Rise of Automation: How Technology Created the Happiest Place on Earth" (Princeton UP, 2026)
When Disneyland opened to the public in 1955, it demystified the hidden world of factory automation through its extraordinary new attractions. In Disneyland and the Rise of Automation: How Technology Created the Happiest Place on Earth (Princeton University Press, 2026), Dr. Roland Betancourt tells the story of how the visionary engineers and designers at Disney transformed the technologies of the
Sarah Murray, "Powered by Smart: A Prehistory of Everyday AI" (NYU Press, 2026)
Powered by Smart traces the techno-cultural evolutions that made artificial intelligence feel more familiar than futuristic. From wearables and streaming platforms to home voice assistants and AI toasters, smart is an inescapable feature of postdigital life. Today, thousands of products and platforms define smart as routine automation and friendly digital kinship. Yet smartness was not always so d
Adrian Woolfson, "On the Future of Species: Authoring Life by Means of Artificial Biological Intelligence" (MIT Press, 2026)
Imagine a future where we grow houses rather than build them. Where smartphones are alive, clothing has opinions and all human knowledge fits into a speck of DNA. A world where disease is a thing of the past and the human lifespan is dramatically extended.To achieve this, says Adrian Woolfson, founder of the genome writing company Genyro, we must transform biology into a predictive, programmable e
Michał Mycka, "Games User Research Cookbook: Tools and Techniques for Better Player Experience" (CRC Press, 2026)
This book offers a comprehensive and practical guide to Games User Research (GUR). Blending theory and hands-on experience, it walks readers through methods, tools, and techniques tailored to the real-world constraints of small and medium-sized game development studios to support them in delivering better player experiences. The book is divided into three parts. Part one introduces core concepts t
Security and Risk: Challenges for Economy and Business in the Global 20th Century: A Conversation with Marie Huber, Nina Kleinöder, and Christian Kleinschmidt
The volume addresses issues of security and risk in economic and business history. A focus lies on the study of security in order to highlight the central role of preventive measures, corresponding corporate strategies, (public) demands for measures to promote security, and the conscious avoidance of actions considered risky. It is less on questions of risk avoidance and more on the analysis of de
David Kirsch on the Dot Com Bubble and Bust
We chat with historian David Kirsch, Associate Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School, about how to understand the Dot Com bubble and bust of the late 1990s and early 2000s. David both lived through the Dot Com moment as a California resident and is a scholar of technology bubbles, including through his coauthored book, Bubbles and Crashes:
The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want
In this episode, Emily M. Bender, Alex Hanna, Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera and Alex Rivera Cartagena discuss the looming social, cultural, and knowledge catastrophe described in The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want (Harper, 2025). They explore how narratives around artificial intelligence are
shaped by powerful tech companies, often obscuring the real limitations,
risks
Alberto Galasso, "The Management of Innovation: Managing and Creating Technology Capital" (Rotman-UTP Publishing, 2024)
Despite the importance of innovation for the growth of firms, industries, and the national economy, the strategic tools available to effectively manage and create new technologies are often neglected by entrepreneurs and corporate managers. The Management of Innovation: Managing and Creating Technology Capital (Rotman-UTP Publishing, 2024) examines how firms can leverage and create technology capi
David Arditi, "Music Technology Panic Narratives Beyond Piracy: From Taping to Napster to TikTok" (Anthem Press, 2026)
Who makes a living from the music industry? In Music Technology Panic Narratives Beyond Piracy: From Taping to Napster to TikTok (Anthem Press, 2026) David Arditi, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Arlington, looks at the history of technology in the music industry. This history illustrates the way the industry continues to profit even as artists struggle to make m
Douglas H. Erwin, "The Origins of the New: Novelty and Innovation in the History of Life, Culture, and Technology" (Princeton UP, 2026)
The Origins of the New (Princeton University Press, 2026) presents a revolutionary approach to evolutionary success in all realms of life. In this groundbreaking book, Douglas Erwin takes readers on a dazzling excursion across science and history to explore how evolution generates new and enduring features in biology, culture, and technology.Erwin begins by tracing how thinkers from Darwin’s time
Wout Saelens, "Fossil Consumerism: Energy, Ecology and Everyday Life in the Early Modern Low Countries" (Leuven UP, 2026)
Fossil Consumerism: Energy, Ecology and Everyday Life in the Early Modern Low Countries (Leuven UP, 2026) by Dr. Wout Saelens explores how the homes of ordinary city dwellers sparked our modern dependence on fossil fuels. Drawing on a rich variety of sources, including probate inventories, household manuals, personal journals, medical treatises and contemporary artwork, it reveals how households i
Ben Collier on Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, and guest host, Paula Bialski, Associate Professor of Digital Sociology at University of St. Gallen, talk to Ben Collier, Senior Lecturer in Digital Methods in the Science, Technology, and Innovation Studies department at the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh, about his book, _Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy_, a
Sam Illingworth and Rachel Forsyth, "GenAI in Higher Education: Redefining Teaching and Learning" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
GenAI in Higher Education: Redefining Teaching and Learning (Bloomsbury, 2026) provides practical guidance for higher education professionals looking to use Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) technologies. Blending theoretical grounding with real-world examples and case studies, it gives step-by-step guidance on how to evaluate, select, and implement GenAI technologies in teaching, learnin
César A. Hidalgo, "The Infinite Alphabet: And the Laws of Knowledge" (Allen Lane, 2026)
We all understand that knowledge shapes the fate of business and the growth of nations, but few of us are aware of the principles that govern its motion. The Infinite Alphabet: And the Laws of Knowledge (Allen Lane, 2026) unravels the laws describing the growth and diffusion of knowledge by taking you from a failed attempt to build a city of knowledge in Ecuador to the growth of China's innovation
Marianna Dudley, "Electric Wind: An Energy History of Modern Britain by Marianna Dudley" (Manchester UP, 2025)
Electric Wind: An Energy History of Modern Britain by Marianna Dudley (Manchester University Press, 2025) is a cutting-edge history of wind power in Britain.
There are turbines on the horizon. The blades whirl with metronomic rhythm. With each rotation, wind is transformed into electricity. An energy revolution is underway. Electric wind rewinds to the beginning to explore the rise of wind energy
Britt Paris, "Radical Infrastructure: Imagining the Internet from the Ground Up" (U California Press, 2025)
We are glad to talk to Britt Paris about her book Radical Infrastructure: Imagining the Internet from the Ground Up (U California Press, 2025).
This book asks: What if we could start over and build the Internet from scratch? For more than eight years, Britt S. Paris investigated alternative Internet infrastructure projects, conducting interviews, site visits, and policy analysis. In this expans
Christiane Tristl, "Turning Water into Commodity: Digital Innovation and the Private Sector as Development Agent" (Bristol UP, 2025)
In this episode, I am in conversation with Dr Christiane Tristl, an economic geographer interested in heterodox economic geography. Their scholarship focuses on big tech companies, digital technologies, marketisation of water and critical agri-food studies. We discuss her book Turning Water into Commodity: Digital Innovation and the Private Sector as Development Agent (Bristol UP, 2025). Dr Tristl
Amelia Acker, "Archiving Machines: From Punch Cards to Platforms" (MIT Press, 2025)
We're so pleased to welcome Dr. Amelia Acker, author of Archiving Machines: From Punch Cards to Platforms (MIT Press, 2025) to the New Books Network!
This book describes the struggle between the computing technologies that archive data and the cultures of information that have led to platforms that assert control over its use. Acker examines the origins of data archives and the computing process
Miguel Sicart, "Playing Software: Homo Ludens in Computational Culture" (MIT Press, 2023)
The play element at the heart of our interactions with computers—and how it drives the best and the worst manifestations of the information age.
Whether we interact with video games or spreadsheets or social media, playing with software shapes every facet of our lives. In Playing Software: Homo Ludens in Computational Culture (MIT Press, 2023), Miguel Sicart delves into why we play with computers,
Alan J. McComas, "Consciousness: The Road to Reductionism" (American Scientist, 2025)
Neuroscientific evidence increasingly shows that consciousness is a remarkable but explainable function of a machinelike brain. Alan J. McComas' discusses his article for the American Scientist.
Alan J. McComas is an emeritus professor of medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada.
Greg is the Executive Director and Founder of the World War II Discussion Forum (wwiidf.org). He also has
Honghong Tinn, "Island Tinkerers: Innovation and Transformation in the Making of Taiwan's Computing Industry" (MIT Press, 2024)
How Taiwan rose to global prominence in high tech manufacturing, from computer maker to the world's leading chip manufacturer. How did Taiwan, a former Japanese colony and the last fortress of the defeated Chinese Nationalists, ascend to such heights in high-tech manufacturing? In Island Tinkerers: Innovation and Transformation in the Making of Taiwan's Computing Industry (MIT Press, 2024), Hongho
Fred Turner on Countercultures, Cybercultures, and Californian and Texan Ideologies
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, and guest host, Paula Bialski, Associate Professor of Digital Sociology at University of St. Gallen, talk to Fred Turner, Harry and Norman Chandler Professor of Communication at Stanford University, about his classic 2006 book, _From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism_. They briefly explore t
Subodhana Wijeyeratne, "The Islands and the Stars: A History of Japan's Space Programs" (Stanford UP, 2026)
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is among the six largest national space agencies in the world, along with China's CNSA, US's NASA, and Russia's Roscosmos. JAXA's budget is more than $1 billion USD—bigger than France or Germany individually, and more than that of Italy, India, Canada, and the UK combined. And yet, Japan's significant contributions have largely been absent in the histo
Marc Masters, "High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape" (UNC Press, 2023)
The cassette tape was revolutionary. Cheap, portable, and reusable, this small plastic rectangle changed music history. Make your own tapes! Trade them with friends! Tape over the ones you don't like! The cassette tape upended pop culture, creating movements and uniting communities.
High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape (UNC Press, 2023) charts the journey of the cassette from its
Joe Williams, "Inequality in the Digital Economy: The Case for a Universal Basic Income" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)
In this episode, Joe Williams speaks with Andrew White about how the digital economy is reshaping inequality, work, and the social contract. Drawing on the themes of his book Inequality in the Digital Economy: The Case for a Universal Basic Income (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024), our conversation explores why technological progress has not translated into shared prosperity, how structural features of
Raiford Guins, "King PONG: How Atari Bounced Across Markets to Make Millions" (MIT Press, 2026)
PONG is one of the longest- and most consistently circulating video games. Released in 1972, it remains at our fingertips as Android or iOS app, hosted at freepong.org and the Internet Archive, and even released as A Tiny Game of Pong for the Apple Watch. Despite its simplicity and ubiquity, Atari’s PONG encapsulates far more than the history of a video game and an iconic game company. King PONG:
W. Patrick McCray, "README: A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines" (MIT Press, 2025)
In README: A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines (MIT Press, 2025), historian Dr. Patrick McCray argues that in order for computers to become ubiquitous, people first had to become interested in them, learn about them, and take the machines seriously. A powerful catalyst for this transformation was, ironically, one of the oldest information technologies we ha
David King Dunaway, "A Four-Eyed World: How Glasses Changed the Way We See" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
Eyeglasses have become so commonplace we hardly think about them—unless we can’t find them. Yet glasses have been controversial throughout history. Roger Bacon pioneered using lenses to see and then spent a decade in a medieval prison for advocating that he could fix" God’s creations by improving our eyesight. Even today, people take off their glasses before having their picture taken, despite how
Ted Striphas, "Algorithmic Culture Before the Internet" (Columbia UP, 2023)
In this episode, Ted Striphas, Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera and Alex Rivera Cartagena discuss Algorithmic Culture Before the Internet
(Columbia University Press 2023), considering how some pre-digital
human systems functioned through repetitive structures and automated
processes that have similarities to electronic algorithms. They discuss
how cognition has become digitized, dispersed across algorithm
Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley et al. eds., "Routledge Handbook of Chinese Media" (Routledge, 2025)
Studying Chinese media has never been a stable intellectual enterprise. As Professor Yuezhi Zhao once observed, it often resembles aiming at a target that appears clear from a distance but becomes elusive on closer inspection. Over the past decade, that target has grown even more fragmented and mobile. Media systems across the Chinese-speaking world—including the People’s Republic of China (PRC),
Yi-Ling Liu, "The Wall Dancers: Searching for Freedom and Connection on the Chinese Internet" (Knopf, 2026)
Not too long ago, in the 2000s and 2010s, many felt that the internet–even one behind the Great Firewall–would bring about a more open China. As President Bill Clinton famously quipped in 2000, Beijing trying to control the internet would be like “trying to nail jello to the wall.”
Things don’t look quite so certain now. China’s internet is now more controlled than it was a decade ago, with platf
Daniela Stockmann and Ting Luo, "Governing Digital China" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
China's approach to digital governance has gained global influence, often evoking Orwellian 'Big Brother' comparisons. Governing Digital China (Cambridge UP, 2025) challenges this perception, arguing that China's approach is radically different in practice. This book explores the logic of popular corporatism, highlighting the bottom-up influences of China's largest platform firms and its citizens
Tom Bolton, "Atomic Albion: Journeys Around Britain’s Nuclear Power Stations" (Strange Attractor, 2025)
The United Kingdom has sixteen nuclear power stations. Most go under the radar, but their presence is enormous, both physically and culturally. They divide opinion like nothing else. Are they relics of a past era, or a crucial part of our futures? Are they cathedrals of science or temples of doom?
Atomic Albion: Journeys Around Britain’s Nuclear Power Stations (Strange Attractor, 2025) by Dr. Tom
Jon R. Lindsay "Age of Deception: Cybersecurity as Secret Statecraft" (Cornell UP, 2025)
At the heart of cybersecurity lies a paradox: Cooperation makes conflict possible. In Age of Deception (Cornell University Press 2025), Jon R. Lindsay shows that widespread trust in cyberspace enables espionage and subversion. While such acts of secret statecraft have long been part of global politics, digital systems have dramatically expanded their scope and scale. Yet success in secret statecra
Tom Griffiths, "The Laws of Thought: The Quest for a Mathematical Theory of the Mind" (Henry Holt and Co., 2026)
The Laws of Thought: The Quest for a Mathematical Theory of the Mind (Henry Holt and Co., 2026) is an exploration of the quest to use mathematics to describe the ways we think, from its origins three hundred years ago to the ideas behind modern AI systems and the ways in which they still differ from human mindsEveryone has a basic understanding of how the physical world works. We learn about phys
Giuseppe Longo and Adam Nocek, "The Organism Is a Theory: Giuseppe Longo on Biology, Mathematics, and AI" (U Minnesota Press, 2026)
A bold reimagining of life that bridges science, philosophy, cybernetics, and the complexities of biological existence
The Organism Is a Theory: Giuseppe Longo on Biology, Mathematics, and AI (Giuseppe Longo and Adam Nocek, 2026) is an intriguing synthesis of decades of interdisciplinary research by eminent mathematician and biological scientist Giuseppe Longo. A unique collaboration between Lon
Robert Dorschel, "The Social Codes of Tech Workers: Class Identity in Digital Capitalism" (MIT Press, 2025)
Who are the people staffing the digital economy? In The Social Codes of Tech Workers: Class Identity in Digital Capitalism (MIT Press, 2025) Robert Dorschel an Assistant Professor in Digital Sociology at the University of Cambridge, explores an occupation that has emerged as central to modern economies and societies. Drawing on an extensive range of interview fieldwork, the book offers a compelli
Emily Hund, "The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media" (Princeton UP, 2023)
Before there were Instagram likes, Twitter hashtags, or TikTok trends, there were bloggers who seemed to have the passion and authenticity that traditional media lacked. The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media (Princeton UP, 2023) tells the story of how early digital creators scrambling for work amid the Great Recession gave rise to the multibillion-dollar industry that
Aaron Bateman. "Weapons in Space: Technology, Politics, and the Rise and Fall of the Strategic Defense Initiative" (MIT Press, 2024)
A new and provocative take on the formerly classified history of accelerating superpower military competition in space in the late Cold War and beyond.
In March 1983, President Ronald Reagan shocked the world when he announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively known as “Star Wars,” a space-based missile defense program aimed at protecting the US from nuclear attack. In Weapons in
Florentine Koppenborg, "Japan's Nuclear Disaster and the Politics of Safety Governance" (Cornell UP, 2023)
Florentine Koppenborg’s Japan’s Nuclear Disaster and the Politics of Safety Governance (Cornell UP, 2023) begins with the understated observation that the triple disaster of March 2011 “exposed severe deficiencies in Japan’s nuclear safety governance.” This is the starting point for the rather curious story of the regulatory reforms taken up in the wake of the Fukushima disaster and how they creat
Jordan Frith, "Barcode" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Barcodes are about as ordinary as an object can be. Billions of them are scanned each day and they impact everything from how we shop to how we travel to how the global economy is managed. But few people likely give them more than a second thought. In a way, the barcode's ordinariness is the ultimate symbol of its success.
However, behind the mundanity of the barcode lies an important history. Bar
Jeremy Black, "A History of Artillery" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023)
Jeremy Black's book A History of Artillery (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023) traces the development of artillery through the ages, providing a thorough study of these weapons. From its earliest recorded use in battle over a millennium ago, up to the recent Gulf War, Balkan, and Afghanistan conflicts, artillery has often been the deciding factor in battle. Black shows that artillery sits within the gene
Donna J. Drucker, "Fertility Technology" (MIT Press, 2023)
A concise overview of fertility technology—its history, practical applications, and ethical and social implications around the world. In the late 1850s, a physician in New York City used a syringe and glass tube to inject half a drop of sperm into a woman’s uterus, marking the first recorded instance of artificial insemination. From that day forward, doctors and scientists have turned to technolog
Luis Felipe Murillo, "Common Circuits: Hacking Alternative Technological Futures" (Stanford UP, 2025)
A digital world in relentless movement—from artificial intelligence to ubiquitous computing—has been captured and reinvented as a monoculture by Silicon Valley "big tech" and venture capital firms. Yet very little is discussed in the public sphere about existing alternatives. Based on long-term field research across San Francisco, Tokyo, and Shenzhen, Common Circuits: Hacking Alternative Technolog
Chaim Gingold, "Building SimCity: How to Put the World in a Machine" (MIT Press, 2024)
Building SimCity explores the history of computer simulation by chronicling one of the most influential simulation games ever made: SimCity. As author Chaim Gingold explains, Will Wright, the visionary designer behind the urban planning game, created SimCity in part to learn about cities, appropriating ideas from traditions in which computers are used as tools for modeling and thinking about the w
Thomas Haigh on the History of “AI” as a Brand
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Thomas Haigh, Professor and Chair of History and affiliate of the Department of Computer Science at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, about his forthcoming book on the history of artificial intelligence. The book, which has had the working title _Artificial Intelligence: The History of a Brand_ with the final title to be determined, examines how and w
Reading the Bible with AI?: A Conversation with John Kaag, Philosopher and Co-Founder of Rebind AI
Rebind combines reading with AI-chat to deepen learning and simulate the experience of conversing with some of the greatest scholars and thinkers. With Rebind, you can read A Tale of Two Cities with Margaret Atwood, Huck Finn with Marlon James, and Candide with Salman Rushdie. John and his team have recently launched the Rebind Study Bible, an interactive way to read, listen, and interpret the Bib
Jimmy Wales with Dan Gardner, "The Seven Rules of Trust: A Blueprint for Building Things That Last" (Crown Currency, 2025)
In my interview with Jimmy Wales, father of Wikipedia, we celebrate his new book, The Seven Rules of Trust: A Blueprint for Building Things That Last (Crown Currency Publishing, 2025). We talk about how the book came about, how Wikipedia took flight, and how the challenges of maintaining trust and preserving neutrality shape the key to Wikipedia's future.
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Amanda Parrish Morgan, "Stroller" (Bloomsbury, 2022)
Among the many things expectant parents are told to buy, none is a more visible symbol of status and parenting philosophy than a stroller. Although its association with wealth dates back to the invention of the first pram in the 1700s, in recent decades, four-figure strollers have become not just status symbols but cultural identifiers.
There are sleek jogging strollers for serious athletes, impos
Elisabetta Ferrari, "Appropriate, Negotiate, Challenge: Activist Imaginaries and the Politics of Digital Technologies" (U California Press, 2024)
Activists utilize digital technologies to communicate, coordinate, and organize for social change. In Appropriate, Negotiate, Challenge: Activist Imaginaries and the Politics of Digital Technologies (U California Press, 2024) Elisabetta Ferrari examines both the politics of Silicon Valley's technological imaginary and how leftist activists appropriate, negotiate, and challenge Silicon Valley's vi
Carl Benedikt Frey, "How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations" (Princeton UP, 2025)
In How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations (Princeton University Press, 2025), Carl Benedikt Frey challenges the conventional belief that economic and technological progress is inevitable. For most of human history, stagnation was the norm, and even today progress and prosperity in the world's largest, most advanced economies--the United States and China--have fallen sho
Cory Doctorow on Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It
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Hilary Allen, "Fintech Dystopia: A Summer Beach Read about Silicon Valley Ruining Things" (2025)
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Christopher Ali, "Farm Fresh Broadband: The Politics of Rural Connectivity" (MIT, 2021)
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The Technological Soul: Alex Priou on Modernity, Ideology, and the Limits of Reason
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AI, News, and the State: Reinstitutionalising Journalism in Global China’s Algorithmic Age: A conversation with Dr. Joanne Kuai
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Muhammad Atique, "Algorithmic Saga: Understanding Media, Culture, and Transformation in the AI Age" (Atique Mindscape Publishing, 2024)
In an age when digital media permeates every aspect of our lives, understanding its influence is more critical than ever. Algorithmic Saga: Understanding Media, Culture, and Transformation in the AI Age (Atique Mindscape Publishing, 2025), serves as a compass, guiding readers through the complexities of our interconnected world. From the moment we wake to a flurry of notifications to the late-nigh
Gaurav Suri and Jay McClelland, "The Emergent Mind: How Intelligence Arises in People and Machines" (Basic Books, 2025)
When we are trying to solve a problem, what happens? We find ourselves weighing arguments, or relying on intuition, then reaching a conscious decision about what to do. What is going on behind the scenes?
In The Emergent Mind: How Intelligence Arises in People and Machines (Basic Books, 2025), Gaurav Suri and Jay McClelland show that our experience is the tip of an iceberg of brain activity that
Xiao Huang et. al, "GeoAI and Human Geography: The Dawn of a New Spatial Intelligence Era" (Springer, 2025)
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Brian Potter, "The Origins of Efficiency" (Stripe Press, 2025)
Efficiency is the engine that powers human civilization. It's the reason rates of famine have fallen precipitously, literacy has risen, and humans are living longer, healthier lives compared to preindustrial times. But where do improvements in production efficiency come from?
In The Origins of Efficiency (Stripe Press, 2025), Brian Potter argues that improving production efficiency--finding way
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