Why read How Data Happened?

Book cover of How Data Happened: A History from the Age of Reason to the Age of Algorithms

Book description

From facial recognition-capable of checking us onto flights or identifying undocumented residents-to automated decision systems that inform everything from who gets loans to who receives bail, each of us moves through a world determined by data-empowered algorithms. But these technologies didn't just appear: they are part of a history that…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked How Data Happened as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Jenny Grant Rankin

Author

This book is fantastic. It shares exciting data stories from history (like how W. E. B. Du Bois used data and statistical reasoning to take down racist insurance practices during the US’s tragic Jim Crow era) and also covers modern applications like data in AI algorithms.

This book makes a great complement to Friendly and Wainer’s 2021 book: A History of Data Visualization and Graphic Communication.

From Jenny's 3 favorite reads in 2024.

Asheesh Siddique

Author

Finding yourself overwhelmed, confused, or just plain curious about artificial intelligence?

Then this is the book for you! Wiggins and Jones provide a lucid, comprehensive overview of how we arrived at our current data-saturated times and how artificial intelligence emerged from the political climate of the Cold War as one attempt in a longer history of the ties between political power and information.

I found myself constantly surprised and enlightened by the history of data sketched out by Wiggins and Jones!

From Asheesh's list on The best books to understand the history of data.