Consider This
Book Review: How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World by Deb Chachra The subtitle of this book, referring to systems that shape our world, describes the understated significance of infrastructure. Deb Chachra takes material that is fascinating from an engineering perspective alone, and presents it in its essential societal significance. Infrastructure drives …
Continue reading “How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World”
Book Review: Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet by Hannah Ritchie This is a refreshingly adult conversation, in which doomsayers and climate change deniers alike are effectively refuted. In this book, Hannah Ritchie presents a strategic plan for an environmentally healthy Earth—it can …
Book Review: How the World Made the West: A 4,000 Year History by Josephine Quinn The historical evidence presented in this book provides cause for rethinking fundamental assumptions about our contemporary geopolitical and societal structures worldwide. Through long term and thorough analysis of archaeological and written artifacts, Josephine Quinn examines the interrelated actions of different …
The original vision for the public Internet that some may assume still applies was that of an open commons of free information exchange on the World Wide Web. As personal expression became further possible through popular hosting services, that expression became a reality for increasing numbers of people who at the time didn’t have and …
Continue reading “The Need for a Common Internet Infrastructure”
Book Review: The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger by Richard G. Wilkinson and Kate E. Pickett This book has stood the test of time, and after its original publication in 2009 it remains an active project with a current updated website at equalitytrust.org.uk. In presenting rigorous research, the authors Richard Wilkinson and …
Continue reading “The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger”
Book Review: Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy by Katherine Stewart This is an excellent resource full of rich substance in decoding why otherwise reasonable people vote for governments that take a jackhammer to the foundations of their freedoms and very livelihoods. Katherine Stewart documents in laser sharp detail the …
Book Review: The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley by Marietje Schaake The lives of most people worldwide are dominated by information technology in an inescapable way—even the poorest people (or perhaps especially the poorest people) need their smart phones to survive. Beyond just the end devices, the back end processing and …
Book Review: At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson Using an old house as a take-off point to address housing, society, developing technology, and science, Bill Bryson guides the reader through each room of an 1851 Victorian parsonage in Norfolk, England—and uses each room as a time machine portal to multiple …
Book Review: Undivided: The Quest for Racial Solidarity in an American Church by Hahrie Han In this book, Hahrie Han addresses racism—a topic that, while some white people may be tired of hearing about it, most Black people are tired of experiencing it in real life at almost every level of society. The characters presented …
Continue reading “Undivided: The Quest for Racial Solidarity in an American Church”
Book Review: Post Growth: Life after Capitalism by Tim Jackson In this book, Tim Jackson provides a compelling explanation of how Capitalism requires an infinite trajectory of growth that is demonstrably impossible, while also providing a tangible alternative road map of how to prosper in a post growth economy. Beyond the established damning critiques of …