James Essinger: Jacquard’s Web: How a Hand-Loom led to the Birth of the Information Age (2007)
Filed under book | Tags: · computing, history of computing, history of technology, technology
* A fascinating look at the previously uninvestigated story of a how a loom invented 200 years ago led to the development of the computer age
* Provides a new perspective on the history of computing and information technology
* Full of interesting and colourful characters: the modest but dedicated Joseph-Marie Jacquard, the brilliant but temperamental polymath Charles Babbage, and the imaginative and perceptive Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron’s daughter
* Contains much compelling new material that has never been published for a general readership until now
Jacquard’s Web is the story of some of the most ingenious inventors the world has ever known, a fascinating account of how a hand-loom invented in Napoleonic France led to the development of the modern information age. James Essinger, a master story-teller, shows through a series of remarkable and meticulously researched historical connections (spanning two centuries and never investigated before) that the Jacquard loom kick-started a process of scientific evolution which would lead directly to the development of the modern computer.
Publisher Oxford University Press, 2007
ISBN 0192805789, 9780192805782
302 pages
PDF (updated on 2012-7-25)
Comment (1)William Chaloupka: Knowing Nukes. The Politics and Culture of the Atom (1992)
Filed under book | Tags: · hyperreality, nuclear weapons, postmodern, poststructuralism, robots, star wars
Countering critics who charge that postmodern positions on language, authority, and power cannot inform effective political responses, this compelling analysis employs these same methods to examine antinuclear politics. Star Wars (the movie and the antimissile system), the Freeze movement, Reaganism, and “lifestyle” politics all receive new treatments.
Publisher U of Minnesota Press, 1992
ISBN 0816620768, 9780816620760
Length 163 pages
Susan J. Douglas: Listening In. Radio and the American Imagination (2004)
Filed under book | Tags: · audience, listening, networks, radio
Few inventions evoke such nostalgia, such deeply personal and vivid memories as radio—from Amos ’n’ Andy and Edward R. Murrow to Wolfman Jack and Howard Stern. Listening In is the first in-depth history of how radio culture and content have kneaded and expanded the American psyche.
But Listening In is more than a history. It is also a reconsideration of what listening to radio has done to American culture in the twentieth century and how it has brought a completely new auditory dimension to our lives. Susan Douglas explores how listening has altered our day-to-day experiences and our own generational identities, cultivating different modes of listening in different eras; how radio has shaped our views of race, gender roles, ethnic barriers, family dynamics, leadership, and the generation gap. With her trademark wit, Douglas has created an eminently readable cultural history of radio.
Publisher University of Minnesota Press, 2004
ISBN 0816644233, 9780816644230
415 pages