Here are 100 books that The Master Switch fans have personally recommended if you like
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I have been fortunate to have spent the last 40 years of my professional life dealing with new networks and new technology. From the early days of cable television and mobile communications to the development of digital video and the transmission of data over cable lines and satellite. It was a career topped off with the privilege of being the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) with regulatory responsibly for approximately 1/6th of the American economy (on which the other 5/6s depended).
At a time when new technology has delivered us to a world of misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation, we have lost our shared understanding of just what facts and truth are.
Jonathan Rauch helps us recall the importance of facts and truth to the liberal democratic process. He challenges us to reinstate knowledge and truth.
Arming Americans to defend the truth from today's war on facts.
Disinformation. Trolling. Conspiracies. Social media pile-ons. Campus intolerance. On the surface, these recent additions to our daily vocabulary appear to have little in common. But together, they are driving an epistemic crisis: a multi-front challenge to America's ability to distinguish fact from fiction and elevate truth above falsehood.
In 2016 Russian trolls and bots nearly drowned the truth in a flood of fake news and conspiracy theories, and Donald Trump and his troll armies continued to do the same. Social media companies struggled to keep up with a flood…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I have been fortunate to have spent the last 40 years of my professional life dealing with new networks and new technology. From the early days of cable television and mobile communications to the development of digital video and the transmission of data over cable lines and satellite. It was a career topped off with the privilege of being the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) with regulatory responsibly for approximately 1/6th of the American economy (on which the other 5/6s depended).
Microsoft president Brad Smith’s thoughtful book is basically about responsibility in the digital age.
Smith takes an approach that is different from most corporate executive books in that he calls out the threats represented by digital technology his company is built on rather than trying to sugarcoat them.
Then he suggests responsible steps that everyone – individuals, public policy, and companies like his – should take to mitigate those threats.
The New York Times bestseller, now updated with new material on cyber attacks, digital sovereignty, and tech in a pandemic.
From Microsoft's president and one of the tech industry's broadest thinkers, a frank and thoughtful reckoning with how to balance enormous promise and existential risk as the digitization of everything accelerates.
"A colorful and insightful insiders' view of how technology is both empowering and threatening us. From privacy to cyberattacks, this timely book is a useful guide for how to navigate the digital future." -Walter Isaacson
Microsoft president Brad Smith operates by a simple core belief: When your technology changes…
I’ve always loved technology. I like the constant change, the sense of creativity and invention, of how it can act as an incredible force for good and human progress and betterment in the world. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t tinkering with gadgets—taking radios apart to mend them or learn how they worked; designing electronic circuits for music synthesis; programming computers. But I’ve also always been interested in politics and the complex intersection of technology and public policy. So much so that most of my working life has been spent at this intersection, which is why I love these books—and hope you will too.
I remember first readingFuture Shockafter buying a battered, orange-coloured paperback edition at a bargain price from one of the second-hand bookshops that once saturated London’s Charing Cross Road.
It hadn’t really occurred to me before how much the increasingly rapid technological changes around us might create a sense of shock—‘future shock’— for some people. It changed my thinking about the influence of technology on our world and the impact it has on people, society, economics, and politics.
Even after all these years, many of Alvin Toffler’s insights and ideas remain just as topical today.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The classic work that predicted the anxieties of a world upended by rapidly emerging technologies—and now provides a road map to solving many of our most pressing crises.
“Explosive . . . brilliantly formulated.” —The Wall Street Journal
Future Shock is the classic that changed our view of tomorrow. Its startling insights into accelerating change led a president to ask his advisers for a special report, inspired composers to write symphonies and rock music, gave a powerful new concept to social science, and added a phrase to our language. Published in over fifty countries, Future…
I have been fortunate to have spent the last 40 years of my professional life dealing with new networks and new technology. From the early days of cable television and mobile communications to the development of digital video and the transmission of data over cable lines and satellite. It was a career topped off with the privilege of being the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) with regulatory responsibly for approximately 1/6th of the American economy (on which the other 5/6s depended).
Tech analyst and investor Azeem Azhar concisely pulls together his take on how the arc of technology has moved from linear to exponential both in its development as well as its impact on society and business.
Azhar brings great insight into how exponential growth – creating an “exponential gap” – has put strains not only on businesses, but also on government and society writ large.
A bold exploration and call-to-arms over the widening gap between AI, automation, and big data—and our ability to deal with its effects
We are living in the first exponential age.
High-tech innovations are created at dazzling speeds; technological forces we barely understand remake our homes and workplaces; centuries-old tenets of politics and economics are upturned by new technologies. It all points to a world that is getting faster at a dizzying pace.
Azeem Azhar, renowned technology analyst and host of the Exponential View podcast, offers a revelatory new model for…
I’m a professor of Chinese studies, and I’m especially interested in what the close study of culture can reveal about aspects of contemporary Chinese life that are usually dominated by the perspectives of historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and political scientists. I’m fascinated not so much by how cultural practices reflect social change but by how they sometimes make it happen, particularly in societies where overt political action is blocked. As my book picks show, I’m intrigued by the inventiveness and drive of people who create culture, often new forms of culture, under conditions of oppression, exploitation, and duress.
This book made a big impact on me because it shifts the study of culture in working-class China from familiar genres such as poetry to the vast domain of the digital.
Qiu argues that a working-class network society has taken firm shape in 21st-century China, made up of migrants, laid-off workers, retired people, young people, and small-scale entrepreneurs. In one sense, these people are the “information have-less” because they belong to the social classes typically on the wrong side of the digital divide.
But Qiu’s book shows that cheap internet access and extensive cell phone penetration in China have enabled the “have-less” to create class identity through their use of information technology. From community-building to memory-making, the book really nuanced my understanding of digital networks as a transformatively cultural force.
An examination of how the availability of low-end information and communication technology has provided a basis for the emergence of a working-class network society in China.
The idea of the “digital divide,” the great social division between information haves and have-nots, has dominated policy debates and scholarly analysis since the 1990s. In Working-Class Network Society, Jack Linchuan Qiu describes a more complex social and technological reality in a newly mobile, urbanizing China. Qiu argues that as inexpensive Internet and mobile phone services become available and are closely integrated with the everyday work and life of low-income communities, they provide a…
I’m puzzled by how people and technology evolve—as humankind we created all of these wonders to make our life easier. At the same time, I feel that we are more focus on the technology and processes, rather than people. It drew me to the topic of sociotechnical systems, which fascinates me. I’ve formal education in IT, and everything is binary; however, during my career I was drawn to the intersection of technology and people. My mission in life is to support a new generation of leaders that want to create an organisational environment that puts people in the center!
I love pattern languages. And Team Topologies brings patterns for team types and their interactions. Most importantly, they address fundamental problems of the software industry: how teams organise for fast flow, and how teams cope with cognitive load. The book steams from the author's experience in the DevOps community, and it is widely used across the world. Last but not least, Team Topologies give us a language that support organisation evolution.
Companion book Remote Team Interactions Workbook now available!
Effective software teams are essential for any organization to deliver value continuously and sustainably. But how do you build the best team organization for your specific goals, culture, and needs?
Team Topologies is a practical, step-by-step, adaptive model for organizational design and team interaction based on four fundamental team types and three team interaction patterns. It is a model that treats teams as the fundamental means of delivery, where team structures and communication pathways are able to evolve with technological and organizational maturity.
In Team Topologies, IT consultants Matthew Skelton and Manuel…
An Heir of Realms tells the tale of two young heroines—a dragon rider and a portal jumper—who fight dragon-like parasites to save their realms from extinction.
Rhoswen is training as a Realm Rider to work with dragons and burn away the Narxon swarming into her realm. Rhoswen’s dream is to…
I have been an information technology and cybersecurity professional for over two decades. I’ve learned over and over again that “people are the weakest link.” You can build the most secure system in the world, with stringent password requirements. But if the user writes their password down and leaves it where someone else can see it, system security is irrelevant! The easiest way to gain access to a system is via “social engineering” – to trick a human being into giving you the access you need, rather than trying to hack the systemitself. The books on this list will help the reader lower their chances of being exploited like this.
Security expert Bruce Schneier wrote this excellent book, talking about the “Goliaths” who are looking to exploit individuals’ data. Focusing more on politics (specifically US politics) than the other books on this list, Schneier talks about the Edward Snowden classified information reveal. He talks about mass surveillance conducted by the US and other governments around the world, and lays out in detail why this should concern us all.
Data is everywhere. We create it every time we go online, turn our phone on (or off) or pay with a credit card. This data is stored, studied, bought and sold by companies and governments for surveillance and for control. "Foremost security expert" (Wired) Bruce Schneier shows how this data has led to a double-edged Internet-a Web that gives power to the people but is abused by the institutions on which those people depend.
In Data and Goliath, Schneier reveals the full extent of surveillance, censorship and propaganda in society today, examining the risks of cybercrime, cyberterrorism and cyberwar.…
I’m a science fiction writer and academic who is interested in the big themes that challenge us as individuals and as a civilisation. My recent writing explores the representation of disability in science fiction. I want to create characters who readers can identify with and who provide different perspectives on the fictional future I am writing about. These characters are not trying to overcome any limitations, they live and accept who and what they are as we all do. The writers and stories I have chosen in this list do the same, showing us something about the human condition that we may not have thought about before.
Tangle’s Game is a clever examination of the near future with an exploration of prejudice that is massively relevant in today’s society. The very best science fiction offers us a mirror to our own circumstances and situations. In the world of Tangle’s Game, we see the cultural behemoths of blockchain technology and social media as even more dominant forces than they are today.
Hotston uses this story to offer an informed and nuanced perspective on the world. Amanda’s descent from conformity highlights the ways in which we are measured and judged.
Yesterday, Amanda Back's life was flawless: the perfect social credit score, the perfect job, the perfect home. Today, Amanda is a target, an enemy of the system holding information dangerous enough to disrupt the world's all-consuming tech-a fugitive on the run. But in a world where an un-hackable blockchain links everyone and everything, there is nowhere to run...
I’ve been fascinated by the news media and technology for as long as I can remember. I successfully campaigned for a VCR as a five-year-old, and watched multiple news programs with my grandfather growing up. Alongside these interests, I managed to read as many books as I possibly could. I’ve managed to somehow parlay that into a job as a researcher, where I study the news media sector and technological transformation. I read everything on this list while I was writing my latest book, and hope you enjoy them as much as I did!
Many of the concerns around news and technology, center around how the distribution of news through social media impacts the news business.
However, we can only understand how these two sectors interact by understanding platform economics. Thankfully, Robin Mansell and W. Edward Steinmueller have written a simple and concise introduction to a complicated topic. A great way to quickly deepen your understanding of an important issue.
Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas.
This cutting edge book introduces the origins and consequences of digital platforms, examining how artificial intelligence-enabled digital platforms collect and process data from and about users by providing social media and e-commerce services. Robin Mansell and W. Edward Steinmueller compare and contrast neoclassical, institutional and critical political economy approaches. They show how uneven…
A poisonous maiden, a Daoist sex cult, and a violent insurgency.
The polyandrous Yan family in China's rural Shaanxi Province takes in two carpenter brothers. When one brother is convicted of murder after killing their neighbor in a dispute, a constable threatens to expose the family's rumored polyandry and extorts…
Saying just the right words in just the right way can cause a box of electronics to behave however you want it to behave… that’s an idea that has captivated me ever since I first played around with a computer at Radio Shack back in 1979. I’m always on the lookout for compelling ways to convey the topic to people who are open-minded, but maybe turned off by things that are overly technical. I teach computer science and study artificial intelligence as a way of expanding what we can get computers to do on our behalf.
The book offers a stark choice: (a) Learn how computers work and the language we use to tell them what to do, or (b) Become digital roadkill.
It's a sentiment that I agree with wholeheartedly, but would never assert so aggressively. The book was written during the early days of the rise social media and the author presciently was aware that society was being overtaken, programmed, by this development. Again, I think he was totally right and our relationship with computers has degraded significantly in the years that followed. We need a revolution!
The debate over whether the Net is good or bad for us fills the airwaves and the blogosphere. But for all the heat of claim and counter-claim, the argument is essentially beside the point: It’s here; it’s everywhere. The real question is, do we direct technology, or do we let ourselves be directed by it and those who have mastered it? “Choose the former,” writes Rushkoff, “and you gain access to the control panel of civilization. Choose the latter, and it could be the last real choice you get to make.”
In ten chapters, composed of ten “commands” accompanied by…
