Books like The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1918 — picked by fans

A modern classic! A fascinating analysis of arts, culture, literature, and social and urban change. A breathtaking read of Goethe’s Faust to Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground and a sharp analysis of what Hausmann’s Parisian boulevards have to do with the prospects of pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg and the highways of mid-century New York. Fantastic chapters on Karl Marx (from whom the title of the book is borrowed) and Charles Baudelaire. Written with poetic perfection!

Cities take a long time to make. Can you make or remake them quickly, like you make instant coffee or assemble fast food? Turns out you can… but you better be a czar or have a similar claim to authority and it may take some time for the product to mature into something worth visiting and living in. David Brook’s A History of Future Cities is one of the most informative and intriguing books on this topic. Beautifully written, the book examines four landmark cases of cities with strong utopian streaks, where powerful political regimes tried to compress time in space and celebrate their glory. The four cases are St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Bombay, and Dubai. Read and dream of visiting. The book will leave you wishing to read about other cities of the same type, among them Washington DC, Brasilia, and Astana.

Nobody really knows what the “American Dream” is. The term was only coined in the 1930s and is used in many different lights. Perhaps it has to do with opportunity and success, perhaps with space and private property, perhaps with just having more stuff. By revisiting the writings of some of America’s founders and greatest 18th-19th-century intellectuals, Hunnicutt comes up with a surprising hypothesis: that the original dream was for people to have free time to spend in creative community activities. Goals relating to material advancement were only means to an end. It was time that early Americans considered as the greatest gift but we, their descendants, have been too busy to notice.

A sweeping study and critique of modern culture! If you are looking for a comprehensive and passionate analysis of time and space in the “late capitalist era,” this is the one to read. Nobody has written more authoritatively on modern and post-modern “time-space compression” (you have to read the book to see what this means). Harvey’s intellectual breadth and depth are astonishing. No wonder he is one of the most cited scholars of our time.

This book scared the hell out of me and, at the same time—because the author offers credible solutions—gave me hope. In all his books, Homer-Dixon does something I can’t get enough of: he presents unfamiliar, often surprising facts about reality in the context of stories, especially stories about the people that uncover them.

The accumulated information and stories reveal a truth, in this case, that human ingenuity, the force that built civilization, may no longer be sufficient to get us out of the mess of problems we have created through its application. Homer-Dixon transformed my writing style.

I loved this book because it provides a unique view of the ramifications of AI, including its impact on politics, international relations, and the military. While not a book one would use to learn the basics of the technology of artificial intelligence, it nevertheless provides a useful view of its important non-technical ramifications.

I am intrigued by James Bridle’s thought-provoking critique of the information age. He reveals how the rapid advance of technology has obscured, rather than clarified, our understanding of the world. Bridle masterfully dissects the societal crises born of big data, AI, and digital networks, painting a vivid picture of our “new dark age.”

His emphasis on the unknowability of complex systems resonates deeply with me, particularly my interest in exploring how AI often operates beyond human comprehension. Bridle’s call for transparency and ethics in technology mirrors my own arguments for robust governance in AI and autonomous weapons.

I like this book because the authors have unearthed powerful insights. In one Reuters study, they say, of slightly more than 1,300 business managers in Europe, the U.S., Southeast Asia, and Australia, 33% of managers were suffering ill health as a direct result of information overload. Nearly two-thirds reported that tension with colleagues and diminished job satisfaction were directly related to the stress of information overload. A majority also admitted that their social and personal relationships have suffered as a result of the stress of having to cope with too much information. That kind of information puts in perspective what so many career professionals experience all too often.

The book delves into territory to which we can all relate, citing, for example, that many managers feel increasing technology leads to loss of privacy, information inundation, and erosion of face-to-face contact. And who among us is happy to have to continually… show more.

Working on the H bomb occupied only a small part of Fermi's long, productive career (and, accordingly, only a small part of this biography), but for a couple of years, it was an important part of his life, and he was an important contributor to its success.

I worked with Fermi on the H bomb.

Written by the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, this book is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand how the technological revolution will change our lives. It begins to unravel the seemingly irreconcilable differences between our insatiable appetite for convenience and consumption with equity and sustainability.