Impact of science and technology on society Books

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Book SynopsisHow smart machines are transforming us all — and what we should do about it. The smart-machines revolution is re-shaping our lives and our societies. Here, Nigel Shadbolt, one of Britain’s leading authorities on artificial intelligence, and Roger Hampson dispel terror, confusion, and misconception. They argue that it is human stupidity, not artificial intelligence, that should concern us. Lucid, well-informed, and deeply human, The Digital Ape offers a unique approach to some of the biggest questions about our future.Trade Review‘[W]e should be grateful to Sir Nigel Shadbolt and Roger Hampson for pausing for breath and helping us to think through the true significance of our latest technological developments.’ * Financial Times *‘Numbed by dire warnings of technological Armageddon? Computer scientist Nigel Shadbolt and economist Roger Hampson dispel the miasma with this superb survey of the landscape we “digital apes” have wrought.’ -- Barbara Kiser * Nature *'Nigel Shadbolt is one of the most fascinating and important scientists alive today.' -- Professor Jim Al-Khalili'There has never been a more important time to discuss what it means to be human, in the past, now, and in the future. This is a book for anyone interested in getting behind the headlines and understanding how technology is impacting our world. The writers are two masters in their field who are not only erudite but immensely humane and compassionate.' -- Martha Lane Fox'This is a brilliantly readable, genuinely cutting-edge book that is also often very entertaining. Of all the recent studies of automation and AI, The Digital Ape stands head and shoulders above the rest. Shadbolt and Hampson have written a landmark book.' * Andrew Keen, author of How to Fix the Future and The Internet is Not the Answer *‘Rich in ideas and insights, the book is especially strong on our growing personal relationships with Alexa and other robots … An upbeat — even reassuring — take on what will be an AI-saturated future.’ STARRED REVIEW * Kirkus Reviews *‘All explore the relationship between the human animal and what might be its most momentous creation yet: artificial intelligence … In a series of wide-ranging chapters, the authors argue that human beings are not just distinguished by their ability to use tools but also largely shaped by it.’ * Weekend Australian *‘[An] interdisciplinary approach comes over in The Digital Ape, which has arresting sentences.’ * Computer Weekly *

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Book SynopsisIn the attention economy, online influencers are an emerging class of power brokers. How can you harness their potential? Break the Internet takes a deep dive into the influencer industry, tracing its evolution from blogging and legacy social media such as Tumblr to today’s world in which YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok dominate. Digital strategist Olivia Yallop goes undercover amongst content creators to understand how online personas are built, uncovering what it is really like to live a branded life and trade in a ‘social stock market’. The result is an insider account of a trend that is set to dominate our future — experts estimate that the economy of influence will be valued at $24 billion globally by 2025.Trade Review‘This is a book that looks deeply at the commodification of the self, and the increasingly blurred line between leisure and labour … Behind our small screens is an unimaginable vastness, which Break the Internet manages to shape into something understandable, even to the influencer-ignorant such as me … wryly funny.’ -- Eleanor Margolis * The Guardian *‘It is refreshing to read a book that eschews the usual sneering anti-influencer condescension. Break the Internet is devoid of snobbery, placing the emergence of influencers within a wider economic context … persuasive and well-written.’ -- James Bloodworth * The Times *‘Riveting. A dizzying and nuanced deep dive into the evolution of content creation, with extraordinary breadth of research.’ -- Pandora Sykes‘Olivia Yallop has written the definitive insider account of influencer culture. Break the Internet is erudite, smart, entertaining, and essential.’ -- Will Storr, author of Selfie‘In 2021 publishers are reckoning with a problem: how do you publish a book about internet culture that doesn’t immediately become outdated? ... Scribe may be the first to find an answer with Break the Internet … A pacy story that’s of the moment but goes beyond it, too.’ -- Sarah Manavis * New Statesman *‘Yallop is an authoritative guide, balancing her experience at a digital agency … with the necessary critical distance of someone with only a few hundred Instagram followers. Her analysis benefits from being grounded in rigorous, real-world reporting … a comprehensive account of a phenomenon that seems more likely to explode than to go away.’ -- Elle Hunt * New Scientist *‘Rigorous and authoritative.’ * The Week *‘An immersive study of the last decade’s most divisive profession.’ -- Lauren O’Neill * Vice *‘Lucid, readable, and sometimes alarming.’ -- Jane Shilling * Daily Mail *‘There was lots in it that I didn’t know ... The analysis I really enjoyed was about how we can’t hold back technology, and everything from printing presses to moving trains has freaked the hell out of people, but how fragile and open to misuse influencer follower count values really are.’ -- Alexandra Heminsley‘The result of Yallop’s immersive investigation is a comprehensive education on influencer culture, its evolution and future … essential reading material for anyone interested in internet culture and a masterclass in engaging non-fiction.’ -- Alice Crossley * Reaction *‘An engaging analysis of online culture, including insights into the dizzying amounts of money influencers make, the decline of traditional media, the philosophy of fame, and the excess and inequality of late capitalism. Consider us influenced.’ * Norton *‘In Olivia Yallop’s new exploration of this cultural phenomenon, she goes far beyond the typically superficial understandings of what an influencer is — and more importantly — how to become one. A fascinating and whip-smart read, Break the Internet is for anyone who wishes to understand influencer culture and its place within the modern context.’ -- Dan Shaw * HappyMag, starred review *‘[Olivia Yallop is] well placed to deliver on the premise of her fascinating debut book, Break the Internet … [She] takes seriously the often-dismissed “creator economy” while maintaining a journalistic scepticism. Her engaging, authoritative account thus considers the broad swathe of internet culture that falls “under the influencer umbrella”.’ -- Gemma Nisbet * The West Australian *‘Along with the advent of social media has come a divergent cohort of individuals who have harnessed its power to attain influence. In Break the Internet … [Olivia Yallop] has connected the dots for many who wish to understand how individual influencers have collectively made a seismic impact in society and commerce. Through extensive research and interviews, Yallop sheds light on what it’s like to have a monetisable internet presence — and more importantly — what it takes to maintain it. She goes to school with the next generation of aspiring influencers to learn what it takes to make it. All this is couched within a historical and cultural context, showing readers the very real-world repercussions of online influence.’ -- Dan Shaw * HappyMag *‘A digital strategist and tech commentator dives into the world of social media influencers … Yallop, who dabbled in influencing before moving to an agency that works in the online space, has plenty of stories involving fantastic numbers, and she writes with clarity and a certain amount of tongue-in-cheek humour … A capable guide takes us on an entertaining, authoritative, and sometimes scary journey.’ * Kirkus Reviews *‘Break the Internet will find a broad audience from social media marketers and strategists to teens and young adults.’ * Booklist *‘Yallop takes us inside the workings of influencers and the ways in which brands and companies can utilise this ready-and-willing corps to help boost their image, reach, and profits. Well-written, engaging, and accessible. This should appeal to anyone with an interest in modern online culture, life, and business/marketing.’ -- Stefan Fergus

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Book SynopsisFrom the telegraph to the touchscreen, how the development of binary switching transformed everyday life and changed the shape of human agency The Switch traces the sudden rise of a technology that has transformed everyday life for billions of people: the binary switch. By chronicling the rapid growth of binary switching since the mid-nineteenth century, Jason Puskar contends that there is no human activity as common today as pushing a button or flipping a switch—the deceptively simple act of turning something on or off. More than a technical history, The Switch offers a cultural and political analysis of how reducing so much human action to binary alternatives has profoundly reshaped modern society. Analyzing this history, Puskar charts the rapid shift from analog to digital across a range of devices—keyboards, cameras, guns, light switches, computers, game controls, even the “nuclear button”—to understand how nineteenth-century techniques continue to influence today’s pervasive digital technologies. In contexts that include musical performance, finger counting, machine writing, voting methods, and immersive play, Puskar shows how the switch to switching led to radically new forms of action and thought. The innovative analysis in The Switch makes clear that binary inputs have altered human agency by making choice instantaneous, effort minimal, and effects more far-reaching than ever. In the process, it concludes, switching also fosters forms of individualism that, though empowering for many, also preserve a legacy of inequality and even domination. Trade Review "In this deeply ambitious and sophisticated book, Jason Puskar invites us to think more seriously about what happens almost every time we touch one of our devices and turn it on or swipe or click. From the technologies at our fingertips to the vastly larger networks of politics and language that they operate and represent, The Switch provides a fascinating cultural history of how we have made the modern world, and been remade in turn, by the simplest of human actions and the connections they enable."—Mark Goble, author of Beautiful Circuits: Modernism and the Mediated Life "A dazzling, beautifully written history of a pervasive but seemingly unremarkable technology of modern life: the binary switch. Jason Puskar’s delightful and important book will fascinate historians of media and technology; it should be required reading for anyone curious about how fantasies of liberal agency are cultivated in the buttons, keyboards, triggers, and toys that make us human."—Justus Nieland, author of Happiness by Design: Modernism and Media in the Eames Era Table of Contents Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Awake at the Switch Part I. Start 1. Origin Stories 2. Designing the Button 3. Analogs and Analogies Part II. Digital Bodies 4. The Point of Touch 5. Counting on the Body 6. Darth Vader’s Nipples Part III. Keyboard Rationality 7. The Keyboard’s Checkered Past 8. Human Types 9. Chording and Coding 10. The Archaeology of Qwerty Part IV. Objects of Play 11. The Toys of Dionysus 12. Pinball Wizards Part V. Haptic Liberalism 13. The Control Panel of Democracy 14. Switching Philosophies 15. Pistolgraphs 16. First-Person Shooters Epilogue: Self-Destruct Notes Index

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Book SynopsisThe Origins of Modern Science is the first synthetic account of the history of science from antiquity through the Scientific Revolution in many decades. Providing readers of all backgrounds and students of all disciplines with the tools to study science like a historian, Ofer Gal covers everything from Pythagorean mathematics to Newton''s Principia, through Islamic medicine, medieval architecture, global commerce and magic. Richly illustrated throughout, scientific reasoning and practices are introduced in accessible and engaging ways with an emphasis on the complex relationships between institutions, beliefs and political structures and practices. Readers gain valuable new insights into the role that science plays both in history and in the world today, placing the crucial challenges to science and technology of our time within their historical and cultural context.Trade Review'Ofer Gal is a superb guide to the history of science. Students will appreciate his clarity, well-chosen illustrations and strong thematic exposition. Instructors will delight in his erudition, synthetic power and fresh historical vision. All can read this book with pleasure and profit. It is the gold standard in texts on science from antiquity to Newton.' John W. Servos, Amherst College'Densely packed throughout with provocative analyses and a wealth of powerful concepts, The Origins of Modern Science is a history on a grand scale that is destined to become a standard work. Gal's narrative exemplifies a rare balance between history and historiography, sophistication and accessibility, text and context, while consistently emphasizing the human component at the heart of this millennia-long saga.' Victor Boantza, University of Minnesota'In The Origins of Modern Science: From Antiquity to the Scientific Revolution, Dr. Ofer Gal has presented the history of science through scientific ideas, concurrent practices and principles of knowledge. The book presents a trove of information on science as 'particular, local and historical,' a remarkable source and perspective certain to inspire the interests of readers as well as those of instructors in their history of science classes.' Caterina Agostini, Rutgers University (formerly North Carolina State)'A fascinating book detailing the rise of modern science in a broader perspective as a human intellectual achievement, one that was contingent on the fallible thoughts and actions of real people, rather than the inevitable triumph of disembodied ideas. Beginning with antiquity, the book does not shy away from difficult questions of the relation of religion and magic to early modern science, and produces a rich account of the development of science through the high Middle Ages to the publication of Newton's Principia. Of particular interest is the original integration of the various ways in which knowledge was thought to be made during these periods. This book deserves to be widely read, not only by historians of science but by a much broader audience interested in the generation of knowledge as a human phenomenon.' Andrew Gregory, University College London'In this very wide-ranging and superbly illustrated account, Ofer Gal offers an original and instructive survey of the development of the sciences from classical and medieval periods to early modernity. In well-organized histories of medicine and mechanics, astronomy and experiment, this work cleverly shows in persuasive detail the intricate relations between the sciences and their history. Designed to provide a usable textbook for students with background in history and in the sciences, the work explains clearly the relationship between theoretical knowledge and practical know-how, and between the complex and fascinating emergence of modern sciences and the long development of different techniques and understandings of nature.' Simon Schaffer, University of Cambridge'This book is an excellent overview of the early history of science and covers the ideas and personalities of the time in a highly readable format. Particularly useful are the references, primary sources, and suggestions for further reading. It deserves to be well thumbed by all with an interest in the history of science and medicine.' Arpan K. Banerjee, Hektoen International JournalTable of Contents1. Cathedrals; 2. Greek Thought; 3. The Birth of Astronomy; 4. Medieval Learning; 5. The Seeds of Revolution; 6. Magic; 7. The Moving Earth; 8. Medicine and the Body; 9. The New Science; 10. The Road to the Principia.

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Book SynopsisThis text offers an understanding of the nature of scientific, mathematical and engineering practice, and the production of scientific knowledge. The author presents an approach to the unpredictable nature of change in science, taking into account a number of factors.

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Book SynopsisA brilliant examination into how the internet is profoundly changing the way we think.In this groundbreaking book, Wired' writer Clive Thompson argues that the internet is boosting our brainpower, encouraging new ways of thinking, and making us more not less intelligent as is so often claimed.Our lives have been changed utterly and irrevocably by the rise of the internet and it is only now that we can begin to analyse this extraordinary phenomenon. The author argues that as we rely more and more for machines to help us think, our thinking itself is becoming richer and more complex. We're able to learn more, retain it longer, to write in curious new forms, and even to think entirely new types of thoughts.Outsmart is filled with stories of people who are living through these profound technological changes. In a series of postcards from the near future, we meet characters such as Gordon Bell, an ageing millionaire who is saving a digital copy of everything that happens to him, and Eric HoTrade Review‘Judicious and insightful … Thompson avoids both the hype and the hand-wringing so common among digital age pontificators’ Walter Isaacson, New York Times ‘Almost without noticing it, the internet has become our intellectual exoskeleton. Rather than just observing this evolution, Clive Thompson takes us to the people, places and technologies driving it, bringing deep reporting, storytelling and analysis to one of the most profound shifts in human history’ Chris Anderson ‘[An] enjoyable study of the digital world … both fascinating and thought-provoking … [Thompson] remains admirably sober about the limits of technology’s’ edifying influence on us: technology, he reminds us, is only ever as smart as the person using it’ Sunday Times ‘Thompson is a talented storyteller … The world outside … is, on balance, much weirder than you think’ The Times ‘Thompson has started an important debate in this lively and accessible book’ Scotsman ‘We should be grateful to have such a clear-eyed and lucid interpreter of our changing technological culture as Clive Thompson. Smarter Than You Think is an important, insightful book about who we are, and who we are becoming’Joshua Foer, New York Times bestselling author of Moonwalking with Einstein

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Book SynopsisFrom FSGO x Logic: a revealing examination of digital advertising and the internet's precarious foundation.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Jennifer Gabrys deftly synthesizes fields and lines of inquiry in weaving a signature story of our age, working across intellectual planes and variegated systems and networks. Program Earth is a tantalizing account of digital, citizen-sensing worlds in the making."—Kevin McHugh, Arizona State University"Impressive and original, Program Earth is not just concerned with the collection and dissemination of data, but also—and more crucially—with the transformation of these data and with their effects."—Steven Shaviro, author of The Universe of Things: On Speculative Realism"Full of stimulating ideas and provocative reframings of environmental concerns that are sure to spark further research."—American Journal of Sociology "Readers will revel in extensively written case studies as well as the contemplative opportunity to challenge, with renewed conceptual tools, the urgent notion of the environment."—Cultural Geographies"Jennifer Gabrys' book is a timely publication that combines empirical insights with a necessary speculative attitude in an emerging field."—Tecnosciencza"This sociological treatise is a valuable contribution for historians of technology... Program Earth succeeds in raising multiple epistemological and political issues intertwining sensing technologies, infrastructures, democracy, and power."—Technology and Culture Table of ContentsContentsPreface and AcknowledgmentsIntroduction. Environment as Experiment in Sensing TechnologyPart 1. Wild Sensing1. Sensing an Experimental Forest: Processing Environments and Distributing Relations 2. From Moss Cam to Spillcam: Technogeographies of Experience3. Animals as Sensors: Mobile Organisms and the Problem of MilieusPart 2. Pollution Sensing4. Sensing Climate Change and Expressing Environmental Citizenship5. Sensing Oceans and Geo-Speculating with a Garbage Patch6. Sensing Air and Creaturing Data Part 3. Urban Sensing7. Citizen Sensing in the Smart and Sustainable City: From Environments to Environmentality8. Engaging the Idiot in Participatory Digital Urbanism 9. Digital Infrastructures of Withness: Constructing a Speculative CityConclusion. Planetary Computerization, RevisitedNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisAfter a decade designing technologies meant to address education, health, and global poverty, award-winning computer scientist Kentaro Toyama came to a difficult conclusion: Even in an age of amazing technology, social progress depends on human changes that gadgets can't deliver.Computers in Bangalore are locked away in dusty cabinets because teachers don't know what to do with them. Mobile phone apps meant to spread hygiene practices in Africa fail to improve health. Executives in Silicon Valley evangelize novel technologies at work even as they send their children to Waldorf schools that ban electronics. And four decades of incredible innovation in America have done nothing to turn the tide of rising poverty and inequality. Why then do we keep hoping that technology will solve our greatest social ills?In this incisive book, Toyama cures us of the manic rhetoric of digital utopians and reinvigorates us with a deeply people-centric view of social change. Contrasting the outlandish claims of tech zealots with stories of people like Patrick Awuah, a Microsoft millionaire who left his engineering job to open Ghana's first liberal arts university, and Tara Sreenivasa, a graduate of a remarkable South Indian school that takes impoverished children into the high-tech offices of Goldman Sachs and Mercedes-Benz, Geek Heresy is a heartwarming reminder that it's human wisdom, not machines, that move our world forward.Trade ReviewWinner of the 2016 PROSE Award in Business, Finance & Management "It is notable...when a techie insider steps outside the tent to chastise his tribe at book length -- and has the gall to both criticize and dedicate the book to his former boss, Bill Gates. Kentaro Toyama, a computer scientist who once ran a lab for Microsoft Research, seems determined to burn his bridge to the technology world with Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology... The book takes a spike-studded tire iron to the efforts by technology entrepreneurs and their enablers to reimagine how we eat, learn, heal, govern and battle poverty."--Anand Giridharadas, New York Times "In this incisive book, Toyama cures us of the manic rhetoric of digital utopians and reinvigorates us with a deeply people-centric view of social change. ...Geek Heresy is a heartwarming reminder that it's human wisdom, not machines, that move our world forward." --National Geographic Online "Everyone working in any facet of education and educational nonprofits needs to read Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change From the Cult of Technology; put down whatever other books you're reading--you are reading, right?--and get a copy of this one." --Seliger & Associates "Toyama lays down eloquently his bone of contention that technology merely amplifies the human condition." --New Indian Express "Toyama's research reminds us that there are very few one-size-fits-all solutions. If technology is going to improve the lives of the world's poorest, it must be grounded in a deep understanding of human behavior and an appreciation for cultural differences." --Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and co-chair of The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation "Read this book! With engaging stories and penetrating insight, Toyama reveals that even the most powerful technologies can't cure our social ills, and he inspires us toward a more deeply human kind of progress."--Ben Mezrich, author of Accidental Billionaires "Controversial yet inspiring...Geek Heresy is a must read for anyone who is passionate about social change...Everyone from field staff and managers to researchers and funders will benefit from his unique perspective; geeks and non-geeks, alike. Finally, we have a book that can help temper our technology addiction with an approach guided by critical thought and practical application."--Global South Development Magazine

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Book SynopsisAn eye-opening look at the new computer revolution and the coming transformation of our economy, society, and culture.

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Book SynopsisIn the New York Times bestseller Everything All at Once, Bill Nye shows you how thinking like a nerd is the key to changing yourself and the world around you. Everyone has an inner nerd just waiting to be awakened by the right passion. In Everything All at Once, Bill Nye will help you find yours. With his call to arms, he wants you to examine every detail of the most difficult problems that look unsolvable—that is, until you find the solution. Bill shows you how to develop critical thinking skills and create change, using his “everything all at once” approach that leaves no stone unturned. Whether addressing climate change, the future of our society as a whole, or personal success, or stripping away the mystery of fire walking, there are certain strategies that get results: looking at the world with relentless curiosity, being driven by a desire for a better future, and being willing to take the actions needed to make change happen. He shares how he came to create this approach—starting with his Boy Scout training (it turns out that a practical understanding of science and engineering is immensely helpful in a capsizing canoe) and moving through the lessons he learned as a full-time engineer at Boeing, a stand-up comedian, CEO of The Planetary Society, and, of course, as Bill Nye The Science Guy. This is the story of how Bill Nye became Bill Nye and how he became a champion of change and an advocate of science. It’s how he became The Science Guy. Bill teaches us that we have the power to make real change. Join him in... dare we say it... changing the world.

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Book SynopsisIn Infrahumanisms Megan H. Glick considers how conversations surrounding nonhuman life have impacted a broad range of attitudes toward forms of human difference such as race, sexuality, and health. She examines the history of human and nonhuman subjectivity as told through twentieth-century scientific and cultural discourses that include pediatrics, primatology, eugenics, exobiology, and obesity research. Outlining how the category of the human is continuously redefined in relation to the infrahuman—a liminal position of speciation existing between the human and the nonhuman—Glick reads a number of phenomena, from early twentieth-century efforts to define children and higher order primates as liminally human and the postwar cultural fascination with extraterrestrial life to anxieties over AIDS, SARS, and other cross-species diseases. In these cases the efforts to define a universal humanity create the means with which to reinforce notions of human difference andTrade Review“Infrahumanisms is an ambitious book that shows the applicability of the term ‘infrahuman’ to a wide range of historical contexts and highlights how these relate to constructions of sexual, racial, gender, and bodily difference…. Offering analyses of an impressive range of twentieth-century scientific and cultural phenomena, from the emergence of primatology to extraterrestrial sightings in the postwar era and contemporary xenotransplantation, Infrahumanisms will be of interest to scholars working in the history of sexuality, critical race studies, animal studies, medical humanities, and science studies.” -- Ina Linge * Journal of the History of Sexuality *“It is a rare work that can bring together topics as disparate as childhood, nonhuman primates, aliens, xenotransplantation, and AIDS…. Full of surprising connections and intriguing insights, Infrahumanisms is a rich and stimulating contribution to the literature on eugenics, biomedicalization, and biopolitics in general.” -- Rose Trappes * Metascience *“The scholarly discussions in both human-animal studies and posthuman theory have been insufficiently attentive to race and colonial histories, and Glick’s work is a welcome addition to these conversations, showing gaps in previous ways of thinking about the ideological functions of the animal/human boundary.” -- Sherryl Vint * Catalyst *“Infrahumanisms shows how beliefs about species categories, species relations, and species hierarchies form the ground from which ideas about biological essentialism, humane behavior, and dehumanization often grow…. Glick’s methods and style in Infrahumanisms are bold and refreshing…. Readers will find this book to be generous, opening up lines of inquiry that may be taken up elsewhere.” -- Rebecah Pulsifer * Women's Studies Quarterly *“Glick presents a new focus on the history of dehumanization and devaluation, of cultural and political exclusion based on differential conditions of embodiment including race, gender, sexuality, disability, and disease status…. A dense yet rewarding read. Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.” -- J. A. Kegley * Choice *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction: Toward a Theory of Infrahumanity 1 Part I. Bioexpansionism, 1900s-1930s 1. Brief Histories of Time: Nature, Culture, and the Making of Modern Childhood 29 2. Ocular Anthropomorphisms:Eugenics and Primatology at the Threshold of the "Almost Human" 56 Part II. Extraterrestriality, 1940s-1970s 3. On Alien Ground: Extraterrestrial Sightings, Atomic Warfare, and the Undoing of the Human Body 85 4. Inner and Outer Spaces: Exobiology, Human Genetics, and the Disembodiment of Corporeal Difference 110 Part III. Interiority, 1980s-2010s 5. Of Sodomy and Cannibalism: Disgust, Dehumanization, and the Rhetorics of Same-Sex and Cross-Species Contagion 139 6. Everything except the Squeal: Porcine Hybridity in the Obesity Epidemic and Xenotransplantation Research 159 Conclusion. The Plurality Is Near: Techniques of Symbiotic Re-speciation 196 Notes 209 Bibliography 247 Index 263

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Book SynopsisIn Fungible Life Aihwa Ong traces the revolutionary scientific developments in Asia by investigating how biomedical centers in Biopolis, Singapore and China mobilize ethnicized "Asian" bodies and health data for genomic research.Trade Review"Anyone interested in cosmopolitan flows of knowledge and risk will find this book of value, as the phenomena that it describes and the methodologies that Ong uses seem to me to be readily transferable. . . . I particularly enjoy the way Ong fits the situated nature of her own authorship, including her Asian background, her family history of cancer and so on, seamlessly into her account. . . . [A] beautiful and engaging piece of writing and an important contribution to a wide spectrum of knowledge." -- Flora Samuel * Times Higher Education *"Embracing a new frontier, Ong’s latest work tackles our fear of the unknown in genomic research, concerns about multiple levels of research ethics, and our curiosity about genomic research’s implications for Chinese and Asian identity, which in turn has implications for human identity as a whole. This book on biomedical research is suitable for graduate students and scholars interested in the production of knowledge, science and technology studies, medical anthropology and sociology, ethnic studies, public health, and broadly Asian Studies." -- Fang Xu * New Books Asia *"This book is an essential contribution to a comparative anthropology of biosentinels through a refined and accessible ethnography of two biotech centers in Singapore and Shenzhen, showing how a future is taking shape in which Asia will play a prominent role." -- Frederic Keck * Medical Anthropology Quarterly *"Ong's book is a deep dive in the complex role of the state, universities, firms, research stars, and knowledge about genetics in shaping the development of Singapore, in particular, as a key space in the development of scientific knowledge. After reading it you can better understand why universities like Duke and Imperial College seek (and need) to have a formal institutional presence in Singapore, and in association with key national partner universities like NUS and NTU. The Ong book, thus, provides insights on the geographical-, historical-, and sectoral -specific developments that these universities are currently navigating." -- Kris Olds * Inside Higher Ed *“Fungible Life is an important addition to the growing literature in area-specific science studies, and an important intervention in the anthropology of science scholarship on racialised science. . . . Well worth the investment for anyone interested in how race, ethnicity and science are made in Asia today.” -- Katherine A. Mason * The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology *“Ong skillfully provides an accessible and lucid account of the intersection of ethnicity, biopolitics and uncertainties in Asia’s bioscientific world. Fungible Life is a valuable addition to fields such as the anthropology of Asia, medical anthropology, and science and technology studies. It is also highly accessible for readers of various levels.” -- Yifeng Cai * Social Anthropology *"The productive uncertainties and ethnic heuristics that Aihwa Ong examines in her study of Singapore’s Biopolis enrich our understanding of ethnicity in postgenomic Asia. These are the major contributions of Fungible Life." -- Wen-Ching Sung * American Ethnologist *Table of ContentsPrologue: Enigmatic Variations ix Acknowledgments xxiii Introduction: Inventing a City of Life 1 Part I. Risks 1. Where the Wild Genes Are 29 2. An Atlas of Asian Diseases 51 3. Smoldering Fire 73 Part II. Uncertainties 4. The Productive Uncertainty of Bioethics 93 5. Virtue and Expatriate Scientists 113 6. Perturbing Life 136 Part III. Known Unknowns 7. A Single Wave 157 8. "Viruses Don't Carry Passports" 174 9. The "Athlete Gene" in China's Future 197 Epilogue: A DNA Bridge and an Octopus's Garden 223 Notes 239 Bibliography 257 Index 271

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Book SynopsisPresents the investigation that the renowned cultural theorist and mathematician Brian Rotman began in his previous books Signifying Nothing and Ad Infinitum ...the Ghost in Turing's Machine: exploring certain signs and the conceptual innovations and subjectivities that they facilitate or foreclose.Trade Review“Becoming Beside Ourselves is a bold, provocative, and highly original argument about the relation between medial effects and changing manifestations of subjectivity. It traces a sweeping trajectory from what Brian Rotman calls the ‘lettered self,’ associated with alphabetic inscription and the codex printed book, to the subject as distributed assemblage associated with network culture. While others have made parts of this kind of argument before, Rotman’s analysis is unique in placing special emphasis on gesture and revealing its traces in orality and print. In a brilliant synthesis, he mixes evolutionary theory with a Deleuzian view of agent-as-assemblage, arguing that computational media both reveal and perform distributed cognition as a crucial aspect of human being-in-the-world. Essential reading for anyone interested in the interrelations between computational media, contemporary subjectivity, and human evolution.”—Katherine Hayles, University of California, Los Angeles“Brian Rotman’s exciting new text not only adds to his previous work on signifying technology (zero, infinity), it expands his study of abstraction to encompass the construction of subjectivity itself. Becoming Beside Ourselves will open up all kinds of unexplored terrains, from grammatology to psychoanalysis, from the history of technology to the study of culture and religion.”—Fredric Jameson, Duke UniversityTable of ContentsForeword: Machine Bodies, Ghosts, and Para-Selves: Confronting the Singularity with Brian Rotman / Timothy Lenoir ix Preface xxxi Acknowledgments xxxv Aura xxxvii Introduction: Lettered Selves and Beyond 1 Part I 1. The Alphabetic Body 13 2. Gesture and Non-Alphabetic Writing 33 Interlude 3. Technological Mathematics 57 Part II 4. Parallel Selves 81 5. Ghost Effects 107 Notes 139 References 151 Index 163

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Book SynopsisThe digital world is a place where even the most informed parents and teachers can feel one pace behind children. Bombarded with scare stories about the risks of everyday Internet interactions for young people, those caring for them are frequently left to navigate online minefields more or less on their own. This book is here to help. Two leading experts on digital childhoods, Dr Sandra Leaton Gray and Professor Andy Phippen, explore the realities of growing up online in the 21st century. They provide an informative and accessible guide to the issues young people face today, based on the latest research and scholarship. They also expose the many ways the child safeguarding industry means well, but often gets things very wrong. The authors explain the latest research on topics such as biometrics, encryption, cyphertext and sexting, and analyse their relevance to the next generation. They raise a number of key questions about the contemporary lives of young people, including their relationship with digital technologies such as games, social media, surveillance and tracking devices. They also challenge conventional thinking on these issues. Rather than relying on technology, they argue we should instead focus on the quality of relationships between children, their peers, their parents and with adults generally. Then we can build a healthy digital future for society as a whole.

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Book SynopsisWelcome, dear visitor, to a proud and storied nation. When you put down this guidebook, look around you. A nation isn’t land. A nation is people. Equal parts speculative and satirical, the stories in Matthew Baker's collection portray a world within touching distance of our own. This is an America riven by dilemmas confronting so many of us, turned on its head by one of the most innovative voices of the moment. Read together, these parallel-universe stories create a composite portrait of our true nature and a dark reflection of the world we live in.Trade ReviewA little revelation . . . The fantastical tales in this delightful book poke, with gleeful audacity, at the edges of contemporary America and late capitalism . . . Transitions of sex, gender, family, geographical borders, digital communication, language and even neurological states are examined in thrillingly imaginative stories . . . A witty, exuberant collection which variously reminded me of The Paper Menagerie, Friday Black, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Years and Years. Mind-bending, like all the best drugs * Big Issue *There’s a skew-whiff wonderfulness to the thirteen tales in this off-kilter look at contemporary America and all its contradictions . . . Tackling hot-button topics, Baker tip-tilts the perspective, offering something at once strange yet instantly familiar . . . It’s all masterfully done, and Baker’s prose is engagingly easeful, yet hypnotically elegant * Daily Mail *Conspicuously talented . . . Baker never takes the easy way out. He doesn’t brandish sharp swords at American capitalism or consumer excess or fears that masquerade as politics. Neither does he construct straw men, then ask the reader to applaud when he lights them on fire. Instead, he demonstrates charity toward his characters, who as Americans stand in for the prismatic nature of the country itself * Washington Post *Satirical and deeply humane, these poignant stories expose the moral bankruptcy at the rotten core of the American social contract * Esquire *Matthew Baker is the rarest of writers, one who can turn complex, high-concept stories into sublime character-driven psalms. His work is both highly original and refreshingly human -- Noah Hawley, creator of 'Fargo'Baker’s writing is taut yet lyrical, and brims with sensitivity towards the pitfalls of human experience * The Rumpus *How does he do it? Matthew Baker’s mind is an oyster producing pearl after pearl. Each story in Why Visit America offers an eerie and unsettling vision of our possible future while remaining emotionally truthful, and, as always, incredibly damn fun -- Kelly Luce, author of 'Pull Me Under'Matthew Baker's Why Visit America is at once deeply heartbroken by the state of our country and world, and also deeply hopeful about what both could be. These stories critically examine the harms wrought by American xenophobia, misogyny, transphobia and capitalism while also bearing an abiding, profound love for this planet and for its people. This is a brilliant collection that shines with imagination, and with empathy -- Anna Valente, author of 'The Desert Sky Before Us'With his unique brand of quirky, sardonic compassion, Matthew Baker offers us a book that’s like a cross-country road trip as seen through a funhouse mirror. At once trenchant and deeply tender, the stories in Why Visit America thrum with all that is exasperating, absurd, tragic, and still so compelling about life in these United States -- Naomi J. Williams, author of 'Landfalls'Matthew Baker's stories are wild in all the best ways but Why Visit America isn't just a triumph of weirdness - these stories use a variety of skewed lenses to offer smart critiques of the systems and beliefs humming through so much of American life. They also somehow manage to be, always, a ton of fun to read -- Lee Connell, author of 'Subcortical'This is the first of its kind, a work born of a deep understanding and a philosophical awareness of how things are. Over a century ago James Joyce aimed to write a moral history of his country: Matthew Baker has achieved that for his own. At the end of this acclaimed and untouchable collection there has been horror, but what remains is love * Lunate *Baker has a knack for this: for placing us in situations that are as foreseeable as they are creative; his musical, visual storytelling swaying us on-side, eliciting, ‘ahs’ and ‘ohs’, while we devour his original ideas about modern society. Within each parable, a sense of hope … It is this that makes his work most memorable (and with our current situation, relevant) long after reading * Port *Baker’s prose is astonishingly crisp, whilst his imagination and storytelling prowess are masterfully original and deeply touching, causing the reader to lose themselves in this most beguiling and transforming collection – once you’ve read Why Visit America, you’ll feel changed, you’ll feel enlightened and most of all you’ll be witnessing greatness * Storgy Magazine *

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Book SynopsisLies and inaccurate information are as old as humanity, but never before have they been so easy to spread. Each moment of every day, the Internet and broadcast media purvey misinformation, either deliberately or accidentally, to a mass audience on subjects ranging from politics to consumer goods to science and medicine, among many others. Because misinformation now has the potential to affect behavior on a massive scale, it is urgently important to understand how it works and what can be done to mitigate its harmful effects.Misinformation and Mass Audiences brings together evidence and ideas from communication research, public health, psychology, political science, environmental studies, and information science to investigate what constitutes misinformation, how it spreads, and how best to counter it. The expert contributors cover such topics as whether and to what extent audiences consciously notice misinformation, the possibilities for audience deception, the ethics Trade ReviewMisinformation and Mass Audiences is well worth reading...It represents a timely foray into the analysis of public misinformation, with a broad vista, providing a number of valuable insights into the phenomenon and often using examples from science communication. * Public Understanding of Science *Readers will find Misinformation and Mass Audiences helpful in developing a better understanding of the current environment and identifying areas for further study. Thoughtful communication practitioners will also benefit from this volume by forcing them to think deeply about the consequences, intended or not, of their work...Misinformation and Mass Audiences would be a good basis for an overall study of misinformation, but students in journalism, political science, public relations, or advertising will also find this collection valuable. * Communication Booknotes Quarterly *[A] robust primer for anyone looking for a social science perspective on misinformation...accessible to broad audiences looking to correct their misinformation about misinformation. * Choice Reviews *[O]ne of the first attempts to systematically analyze how misinformation functions in the modern age. * Vox *A valuable resource for laymen as well as scholars and journalists, [Misinformation and Mass Audiences] is a well-documented book and significant contribution toward understanding the complexity and diversity of misinformation in our lives. * Communications *This book is a clear and concise introduction to many of the important themes in misinformation studies. It is a valuable contribution to the new research agenda taking shape in political communication research. * International Journal of Press/Politics *Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Misinformation among Mass Audiences as a Focus for Inquiry (Brian G. Southwell, Emily A. Thorson, and Laura Sheble) Part I. Dimensions of Audience Awareness of Misinformation Chapter 1. Believing Things That Are Not True: A Cognitive Science Perspective on Misinformation (Elizabeth J. Marsh and Brenda W. Yang) Chapter 2. Awareness of Misinformation in Health-Related Advertising: A Narrative Review of the Literature (Vanessa Boudewyns, Brian G. Southwell, Kevin R. Betts, Catherine Slota Gupta, Ryan S. Paquin, Amie C. O’Donoghue, and Natasha Vazquez) Chapter 3. The Importance of Measuring Knowledge in the Age of Misinformation and Challenges in the Tobacco Domain (Joseph N. Cappella, Yotam Ophir, and Jazmyne Sutton) Chapter 4. Measuring Perceptions of Shares of Groups (Douglas J. Ahler and Gaurav Sood) Chapter 5. Dimensions of Visual Misinformation in the Emerging Media Landscape (Jeff Hemsley and Jaime Snyder) Part II. Theoretical Effects and Consequences of Misinformation Chapter 6. The Effects of False Information in News Stories (Melanie C. Green and John K. Donahue) Chapter 7. Can Satire and Irony Constitute Misinformation? (Dannagal G. Young) Chapter 8. Media and Political Misperceptions (Brian E. Weeks) Chapter 9. Misinformation and Science: Emergence, Diffusion, and Persistence (Laura Sheble) Chapter 10. Doing the Wrong Things for the Right Reasons: How Environmental Misinformation Affects Environmental Behavior (Alexander Maki, Amanda R. Carrico, and Michael P. Vandenbergh) Part III. Solutions and Remedies for Misinformation Chapter 11. Misinformation and Its Correction: Cognitive Mechanisms and Recommendations for Mass Communication (Briony Swire and Ullrich Ecker) Chapter 12. How to Counteract Consumer Product Misinformation (Graham Bullock) Chapter 13. A History of Fact Checking in U.S. Politics and Election Contexts (Shannon Poulsen and Dannagal G. Young) Chapter 14. Comparing Approaches to Journalistic Fact Checking (Emily A. Thorson) Chapter 15. The Role of Middle-Level Gatekeepers in the Propagation and Longevity of Misinformation (Jeff Hemsley) Chapter 16. Encouraging Information Search to Counteract Misinformation: Providing "Balanced" Information about Vaccines (Samantha Kaplan) Conclusion: An Agenda for Misinformation Research (Emily A. Thorson, Laura Sheble, and Brian G. Southwell) Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Everything is in flux, as we are told over and over again. And yet, these are fluxes in which nothing ever really changes... Other thinkers have characterized globalized and financialized capitalism in this way; Neyrat sees it as a dilemma for critical thought as well... In a world where anything can be anyplace, and anything can switch places with anything else, philosophy must insist on its power to be, not everyplace, but noplace. It must never fit in, but always disturb its context, ... maintaining a relation with the very Outside that our dominant social, economic, and intellectual conditions seek to deny or suppress... Above all, Atopias is a work of ethics, exhorting us to recognize and find room for the many forms of existence with whom we share our planet." -- -from Steven Shaviro's ForewordTable of ContentsCritique of pure madness Book I: Toposophy 1.1 The undamaged and the contagious 1.2 Saturated immanence and transcendence x 1.3 Socratic divergence Book II: Theory of the trans-ject 2.1 Being-outside 2.2 Coalitions 2.3 Ab-solved freedom 2.4 Language and dis-joining 2.5 On the subject of animals Book III: The metaphysical proposition 3.1 The transgression of the principle of the excluded middle 3.2 The leap and the loop 3.3 The unlocatable 3.4 The madwoman of the out-of-place 3.5 Science(s), art, politics What cries out

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Book SynopsisFinancial Times Best Books of the Year 2018TechRepublic Top Books Every Techie Should ReadBook DescriptionHow will AI evolve and what major innovations are on the horizon? What will its impact be on the job market, economy, and society? What is the path toward human-level machine intelligence? What should we be concerned about as artificial intelligence advances?Architects of Intelligence contains a series of in-depth, one-to-one interviews where New York Times bestselling author, Martin Ford, uncovers the truth behind these questions from some of the brightest minds in the Artificial Intelligence community.Martin has wide-ranging conversations with twenty-three of the world's foremost researchers and entrepreneurs working in AI and robotics: Demis Hassabis (DeepMind), Ray Kurzweil (Google), Geoffrey Hinton (Univ. of Toronto and Google), Rodney Brooks (Rethink Robotics), Yann LeCun (Facebook) , Fei-Fei Li (Stanford and Google), Yoshua Bengio (Univ. of Montreal), Andrew Ng (AI Fund), Daphne Koller (Stanford), Stuart Russell (UC Berkeley), Nick Bostrom (Univ. of Oxford), Barbara Grosz (Harvard), David Ferrucci (Elemental Cognition), James Manyika (McKinsey), Judea Pearl (UCLA), Josh Tenenbaum (MIT), Rana el Kaliouby (Affectiva), Daniela Rus (MIT), Jeff Dean (Google), Cynthia Breazeal (MIT), Oren Etzioni (Allen Institute for AI), Gary Marcus (NYU), and Bryan Johnson (Kernel).Martin Ford is a prominent futurist, and author of Financial Times Business Book of the Year, Rise of the Robots. He speaks at conferences and companies around the world on what AI and automation might mean for the future.Meet the minds behind the AI superpowers as they discuss the science, business and ethics of modern artificial intelligence. Read James Manyika’s thoughts on AI analytics, Geoffrey Hinton’s breakthroughs in AI programming and development, and Rana el Kaliouby’s insights into AI marketing. This AI book collects the opinions of the luminaries of the AI business, such as Stuart Russell (coauthor of the leading AI textbook), Rodney Brooks (a leader in AI robotics), Demis Hassabis (chess prodigy and mind behind AlphaGo), and Yoshua Bengio (leader in deep learning) to complete your AI education and give you an AI advantage in 2019 and the future.

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Book SynopsisLooking beyond the business sector, Fred Gault examines the measurement of innovation in all economic sectors using an internationally agreed definition of innovation. This timely book explores the challenges and implications of measuring innovation, producing indicators to support policy development, monitoring, evaluation and learning. Examining innovation as a systems phenomenon, chapters offer readers an understanding of the impact of the innovation policy of governments, the strategy of businesses and the practice of households in a more digital economy. Gault also looks at the growing importance of restricted innovation as well as the informal economy and the difficulties around measuring social innovation. Concise and cutting-edge, this book will benefit economics and innovation scholars, particularly those looking into national innovation systems. Policy makers and organisations focused on the statistical measurement of innovation will also find this book offers helpful insights into the topic.Trade Review'Fred Gault is a pioneer when it comes to measure innovation. This book gives a comprehensive view of recent international developments. A must read for any innovation scholar or policy maker.' --Dietmar Harhoff, Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Germany'In this very important new book, innovation statistics expert Fred Gault develops the policy implications of the new definition of innovation contained in the current Oslo Manual. For the first time, governments can provide a view of the innovation process as a true multisectoral systems phenomenon that includes important contributions from the household sector.' --Eric von Hippel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, USTable of ContentsContents: Preface PART I INTRODUCTION 1. Introduction to ‘Innovation Everywhere’ 2. Innovation systems PART II INNOVATION POLICY 3. Innovation policy prior to 2020 4. Monitoring and evaluation of innovation policy 5. Developing innovation policy PART III MEASURING INNOVATION 6. Defining innovation for measurement purposes 7. Measuring innovation in all economic sectors 8. Measuring innovation across economic sectors PART IV WHERE NEXT? 9. Innovation and future challenges 10. Innovation, measurement and policy 11. Conclusion References Index

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Book SynopsisThe cheap mobile phone is arguably the most significant personal communications device in history. In India, where caste hierarchy has reinforced power for generations, the disruptive potential of the mobile phone is even more striking than elsewhere. In 2001, India had 35 million telephones, only four million of them mobiles. Ten years later, it had more than 800 million phone subscribers; more than 95 per cent were mobile phones. In a decade, communications in India have been transformed by a device that can be shared by fisherfolk in Kerala, boatmen in Banaras, great capitalists in Mumbai and power-wielding politicians and bureaucrats in New Delhi. Village councils banned unmarried girls from having mobile phones. Families debated whether new brides should surrender them. Cheap mobile phones became photo albums, music machines and radios. Religious images and uplifting messages flooded tens of millions of phones each day. Pornographers and criminals found a tantalising new tool. In politics, organisations with cadres of true believers exploited a resource infinitely more effective than telegrams, postcards and the printing press for carrying messages to workers, followers and voters. Jeffrey and Doron focus on three groups - controllers: the bureaucrats, politicians and capitalists who wrestle over control of radio frequency spectrum; servants: the marketers, agents, technicians, tower-builders, repairers and second-hand dealers who carry mobile phones to the masses; and users: the politicians, activists, businesses and households that adapt the mobile phone to their needs. The book probes the whole universe of the mobile phone - from the contests of great capitalists and governments to control radio frequency spectrum, to the ways ordinary people build the troublesome and addictive device into their daily lives.Trade ReviewThis superb new book reminds us how little we have explored the new landscape of opportunity, aspiration and, inevitably, disappointment that mobile phones have opened up in India. -- Pankaj Mishra * Bloomberg *A comprehensive look at what cellphones have meant for India. Their story covers everything from family relations and gender barriers to terrorism and the relations of citizens to the state. Out of what could have been a dry study packed with statistics the authors have managed to write a superb book--informative, insightful, witty--that is essential reading for anyone interested in India, or technological change, or good stories told with clarity and purpose. * Wall Street Journal *This book is, overall, a very well researched, comprehensive and timely contribution to understanding the consequences of mobile phone technology, and its engaging and accessible style means it is likely to appeal to a variety of audiences. * Times Higher Education *How did India go from being a country in which making phone calls was exquisite torture to the world's second-largest market for mobile phones in just ten years? And what did this rapid proliferation of communication do to Indian society? Assa Doron's and Robin Jeffrey's ambitious survey is a good place to find some answers. ... 'The Great Indian Phone Book' is actually two books in one. The first half is a whirlwind recap of how India was connected, told simply and with a wealth of numbers. The second is an ethnographic study that dives into the intricacies of Indian society without pretending to be comprehensive. ... [T]he strength of the book lies in its repeated emphasis on technology as something that does not eliminate political and social structures, though it may modify them. * The Economist *a riveting account of India's wholesale uptake of mass telecommunication... The Great Indian Phone Book is as packed with thrills as it is with anecdotes and information. This is that rarest of literary marriages, scholarship with a light touch. * Asian Affairs *In this fine anthropological study, Doron and Jeffrey look at how the introduction and current widespread use of the cell phone has altered life in one of the world s largest countries. In 1991, there were 165 people for every telephone in India, but today this ratio is 2:1 or less. The authors cover the technical aspects of this rapid expansion, as well as some of the corruption involved, including the arrest of a former minister of communications. More compelling, though, are the stories of individual citizens and the changes, not always for the better, wrought by mobile phone ownership. For example, the growth of the cell phone industry resulted in new jobs in sales, tower construction, manufacturing, and repair, both by corporate employees and street craftsmen. The 2007 elections in Uttar Pradesh were profoundly affected by motivated citizens using their mobiles. In traditional households, it isn't uncommon for new brides to have their phones confiscated by their in-laws for modesty's sake. Pornography, terrorism, and surveillance abuses are just some of the criminal acts abetted by cell phones. This rich study reveals much about modern India and should be read by both students and scholars of technology and South Asia. * Publishers Weekly *A major achievement. The authors have explored every facet of this topic thoroughly, setting everything in its complex historical context. They demonstrate knowledge and true understanding of the historical and social issues. What is more, their work is eminently readable. -- Bill Kirkman * The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs *[I]n this book a historian and an anthropologist illustrate the titanic impact of the telecommunications industry on the largest democracy in the world . . . where there has been more dramatic growth in the spread of mobile phones than in any other region in the world. . . . They describe the unique potency of a cheap mobile phone that puts an immensely disruptive device within reach of the poor. . . . This is an important book that can usefully be read by students, social scientists, and business managers--indeed, by anyone interested in change and its effect on developing and complex societies. -- Denis O'Brien * Finance & Development *In 'The Great Indian Phone Book', Robin Jeffrey (a political scientist) and Assa Doron (an anthropologist) have produced a riveting study that traces the effects of mobile technology on the lives of everyday people, from the fishermen who can now more effectively set the price of their catch to the electronic technicians who make a living from repairing banged-up handsets. . . . Jeffrey and Doron offer a timely reminder that mobile cultures are moving in many directions simultaneously. With convergence, the technological gap between the mobile and other devices is closing--but the uses to which the mobile is put around the world remain impossibly diverse. -- Ramon Lobato * Inside Story *This book takes us on India's journey towards modernity through the story of the rise of the mobile telephone, tracking the incredible social, economic and political changes that have accompanied the explosion of mobile communications in India. * Contemporary South Asia *Jeffrey and Doron's landmark study of how the humble cell phone is changing the culture of Indian democracy in everyday life has no competitors. Their interdisciplinary analysis of popular aspirations and anxieties surrounding mobile telephones will invite and inspire comparative studies set in other emerging economies. A remarkable achievement. -- Dipesh Charkrabarty, Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguished Service ProfessorThis is a fascinating, smart and erudite volume on how the Indian cellphone industry developed, and what its extraordinary growth has meant for the country. It can serve as a kind of vade mecum for many thousands of interested readers seeking to learn about the subject whether as amateurs or as specialists entering a new domain. -- Arvind Rajagopal, Professor of Media Studies, New York UniversityA marvelous, briskly written book, combining a panoptical overview of the broader media landscape with gripping vignettes. Doron and Jeffrey write with insight and journalistic brio, making this book highly accessible to a very wide range of readers. -- Christopher PinneyA comprehensive chronicle of how mobile phones changed Indian lives and in the process India's economy. Capitalists, ministers, boatmen, farmers, advertising geniuses, porn peddlers, political workers and tireless salesmen populate this story. Jeffrey and Doron's sociological take on the mobile phone as a great leveller is rich and riveting. -- Sevanti Ninan, editor of 'The Hoot', and author of, inter alia, 'Through the Magic Window: Television and Change in India''The Great Indian Phone Book' is a wake-up call for anyone intrigued by today's network society. Engagingly written, intelligently researched, and enlivened with memorable anecdotes framed by deft exposition, it offers up a compelling and compellingly readable introduction to a subject of unquestioned significance: the remarkable emergence of the mobile telephone as an agent of change in the developing world. -- Richard R. John, author of 'Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications'An engaging and informative analysis of the use of cell phones in India, a nation of over one billion people, where this small device has been a harbinger of big social and economic changes--and an enabler of unbridled entrepreneurship. -- Tarun Khanna, author of 'Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India are Reshaping Their Futures--and Yours'This book takes a comprehensive, and highly entertaining look at the mobile phone revolution and its implications for India . . . The authors . . . have clearly succeeded in their central mission of writing a book that would hold up its head as both sound scholarship and engaging reading. * The Commonwealth Lawyer *

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Book SynopsisHow will the world be powered in ten years' time? Not by fossil fuels. Energy experts are all saying the same thing: solar photovoltaics (PV) is our future. Reports from universities, investment banks, international institutions and large investors agree. It's not about whether the switch from fossil fuels to solar power will happen, but when. Solar panels are being made that will last longer than ever hoped; investors are seeing the benefits of the long-term rewards provided by investing in solar; in the Middle East, a contractor can now offer solar-powered electricity far cheaper than that of a coal-fired power station. The Switch tracks the transition away from coal, oil and gas to a world in which the limitless energy of the sun provides much of the energy the 10 billion people of this planet will need. It examines both the solar future and how we will get there, and the ways in which we will provide stored power when the sun isn't shining. We learn about artificial photosynthesis from a start-up in the US that is making petrol from just CO2 and sunlight; ideas on energy storage are drawn from a company in Germany that makes batteries for homes; in the UK, a small company in Swindon has the story of wind turbines; and in Switzerland, a developer shows how we can use hydrogen to make 'renewable' natural gas for heating. Told through the stories of entrepreneurs, inventors and scientists from around the world, and using the latest research and studies, The Switch provides a positive solution to the climate change crisis, and looks to a brighter future ahead.Trade ReviewA highly readable book * Financial Times *

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Book Synopsis• An agenda-setting book that asks what inclusion and equity should look like within the field of science communication. • Truly global in coverage, providing the perspectives of the groups that are marginalised and made invisible with the field, containing contributions from across the world. • Includes academic and practitioner perspectives.Table of ContentsIntroduction – Elizabeth Rasekoala Part I: The Practice(s) of Science Communication: Challenges and Opportunities for Race, Gender, Language and Epistemic Diversity, Representation and Inclusion 1. Inclusion Is More Than an Invitation: Shifting Science Communication in a Science Museum – C. James Liu, Priya Mohabir, Dorothy Bennett 2. Communicating Science On, to, and With Racial Minorities During Pandemics – John Noel Viana 3. Breaking the Silos, Science Communication for All – Amparo Leyman Pino 4. Building Capacity for Science Communication in South Africa: Afrocentric Perspectives From Mathematical Scientists – Mpfareleni Rejoyce Gavhi-Molefe and Rudzani Nemutudi Part II: Science Communication in the Global South: Leveraging Indigenous Knowledge, Cultural Emancipation and Epistemic Renaissance for Innovative Transformation 5. Challenges of Epistemic Justice and Diversity in Science Communication in Mexico: Imperatives for Radical Re-Positioning Towards Transformative Contexts of Social Problem Solving, Cultural Inclusion and Trans-Disciplinarity – Susana Herrera-Lima and Sofía Gutiérrez-Ramírez 6. Past, Present and Future: Perspectives on the Development of an Indigenous Science Communication Agenda in Nigeria – Temilade Sesan and Ayodele Ibiyemi 7. Harnessing Indigenous Knowledge Systems for Socially Inclusive Science Communication: Working Towards a “Science for Us, With Us” Approach to Science Communication in the Global South – Konosoang Sobane, Wilfred Lunga and Lebogang Setlhabane 8. Indigenous Science Discourse in the Mainstream: The Case of ‘Mātauranga and Science’ in New Zealand Science Review – Ocean Ripeka Mercier and Anne-Marie Jackson Part III: The Decolonisation Agenda in Science Communication: Deconstructing Eurocentric Hegemony, Ideology and Pseudo-Historical Memory 9. Decolonising Initiatives in Action: From Theory to Practice at the Museum of Us – Brandie Macdonald and Micah Parzen 10. Falling From Normalcy? Decolonisation of Museums, Science Centres & Science Communication – Mohamed Belhorma 11. African Challenges and Opportunities for Decolonised Research-Led Innovation and Communication for Societal Transformation – Akanimo Odon 12. Decolonising Science Communication in the Caribbean: Challenges and Transformations in Community-Based Engagement With Research on the ABCSSS Islands – Tibisay Sankatsing Nava, Roxanne-Liana Francisca, Krista T. Oplaat and Tadzio Bervoets Part IV: The Globally Diverse History of Science Communication: Deconstructing Notions of Science Communication as a Modern Western Enterprise 13. Shen Kua’s Meng Hsi Pi T’an (c. 1095 CE): China’s First Notebook Encyclopaedia as a Science Communication Text – Ruoyu Duan, Biaowen Huang and Lindy A. orthia 14. Making Knowledge Visible: Artisans, Craftsmen, Printmakers and the Knowledge Sharing Practices of 19th-Century Bengal – Siddharth Kankaria, Anwesha Chakraborty and Argha Manna 15. Advancing Globally Inclusive Science Communication: Bridging the North-South Divide Through Decolonisation, Equity, and Mutual Learning – Elizabeth Rasekoala

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Book SynopsisHow analyzing scientific practices can alter debates on the relationship between science and reality Numerous scholarly works focus solely on scientific metaphysics or biological practice, but few attempt to bridge the two subjects. This volume, the latest in the Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science series, explores what a scientific metaphysics grounded in biological practices could look like and how it might impact the way we investigate the world around us. From Biological Practice to Scientific Metaphysics examines how to reconcile the methods of biological practice with the methods of metaphysical cosmology, notably regarding the origins of life. The contributors take up a wide range of traditional metaphysics and philosophy of science topics, including natural kinds, medicine, ecology, genetics, scientific pluralism, reductionism, operationalism, mechanisms, the nature of information, and more. Many of the chapters represent the first philosophical treatments of significant biological practices. From causality and complexity to niche constructions and inference, the contributors review and discuss long-held objections to metaphysics by natural scientists. They illuminate how, in order to learn about the world as it truly is, we must look not only at what scientists say but also what they do: for ontology cannot be read directly from scientific claims. Contributors: Richard Creath, Arizona State U; Marc Ereshefsky, U of Calgary; Marie I. Kaiser, Bielefeld U; Thomas A. C. Reydon, Leibniz U Hannover and Michigan State U; Lauren N. Ross, U of California, Irvine; Rose Trappes, U of Exeter; Marcel Weber, U of Geneva; William C. Wimsatt, U of Chicago. Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions.

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Book SynopsisIn Genomics with Care Mike Fortun presents an experimental ethnography of contemporary genomics, analyzing science as a complex amalgam of cognition and affect, formal logics and tacit knowledge, statistics, and ethics. Fortun examines genomics in terms of care—a dense composite of affective and cognitive forces that drive scientists and the relations they form with their objects of research, data, knowledge, and community. Reading genomics with care shows how each resists definition yet is so entangled as to become indistinguishable. Fortun analyzes four patterns of genomic care—curation, scrupulousness, solicitude, and friendship—seen in the conceptual, technological, social, and methodological changes that transpired as the genetics of the 1980s became the genomics of the 1990s, and then the “post-genomics” of the 2000s. By tracing the dense patterns made where care binds to science, Fortun shows how these patterns mark where scientists are driveTrade Review“Genomics with Care is an inventive, generous, funny, rigorous, and path-opening contribution to the anthropology of science that teaches readers new methods of understanding science as a vocation. Mike Fortun deftly fuses attention to the social affects and effects that accompany research in today’s molecular biology. This utterly splendid book reminds us what science and science studies are for.” -- Stefan Helmreich, author of * A Book of Waves *“This brilliant and much-needed intervention into science and technology studies provides an affecting model for reading not just genomics, but the sciences in general. It opens a new path for thinking and writing differently in relation to the natural sciences. Indeed, it is a superb model for scholars and students who wish to read any text, community, or epistemology in a caring and critical way.” -- Elizabeth A. Wilson, author of * Gut Feminism *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Poem-Like Tolls 1: A Prelude 1 Part I. Genomics, Double Binds, Affects 1. Fors 13 2. Labyrinth Life: Affect Excess Infrastructure 42 3. Double Binds of Science 80 Poem-Like Tolls 2: An Interlude Part II. Minding the Infrastructure of Genomics 4. Curation: Of Data’s Limits 111 5. Scrupulousness: Of Experiment’s Limit 141 6. Solicitude: Of Science’s Limit 183 7. Friendship: Of Community’s Limits 221 Poem-Like Tolls 3: An Appendix 253 Postscript 259 Notes 277 Works Cited 311 Index 337

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Book SynopsisThe vacuum is central to physicists'' best theories of subatomic particles, gravitation, and cosmology. Nothingness provides the reference point with which to compare new particle creation and annihilation. Cosmologists use empty universes to study the causal structure of spacetime. Paradoxically, our best physical theories of particles, gravity, and spacetime are theories of nothingness. Stranger still, the physicists'' vacuum is a hive of activity. Quantum fluctuations fill empty space with particles, and astronomers measure gravitational waves, the vibrations of empty spacetime itself.More than Nothing uses the history of the vacuum to show how technical concepts in physics are made real through everyday practice. It provides new insight into the development of twentieth-century theoretical physics through sustained analysis of understudied figures including John Wheeler''s geometrodynamics and Sidney Coleman''s false vacuum. It reveals the surprising influence on physicists from th

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Book SynopsisHenry Dicks explores the philosophical significance of biomimicry, the application and adaptation of strategies found in nature to the development of artificial products and systems. He argues that biomimicry can serve as the basis for a new environmental philosophy that radically alters how we understand and relate to the natural world.Trade Review[The Biomimicry Revolution] provides not only an understanding of the theory and practice of biomimicry, but also a detailed and in-depth analysis of philosophy, classification, and problematization. These features enable the reader to understand that biomimicry is a coherent new entity and philosophy. This book can be used as a quality addition to the literature on a comprehensive philosophical analysis of biomimicry. * Regional Science Policy & Practice *This is an exciting and intellectually invigorating study into the underlying philosophy of biomimicry. Building upon the three principles central to biomimicry—nature as model, nature as measure, nature as mentor—Dicks creates a new philosophical framework structured by technics, ethics, and epistemology. What follows is a lively and groundbreaking ontological inquiry into ‘the nature of nature’ and what we can learn from nature about sustainably inhabiting the earth. -- Adrian Parr, author of Earthlings: Imaginative Encounters with the Natural WorldThe book, rooted in the continental tradition of philosophy, takes a fairly liberal approach to semantics and association, but is written in a very clear manner, and is well structured and relatively easy to follow. * Quarterly Review of Biology *In many instances, Dicks demonstrates a remarkable ability to navigate unexplored conceptual terrains, which have not been thoroughly examined, guided primarily by his biomimetic principles. * Journal of Ecohumanism *Table of ContentsPrefaceIntroduction: Biomimicry as a New Philosophy1. Nature as Physis: An Ontology for Biomimicry2. Nature as Model: Biomimetic Technics3. Nature as Measure: Biomimetic Ethics4. Nature as Mentor: Biomimetic EpistemologyConclusion: Toward a New EnlightenmentNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisFrom a renowned pioneer of the localization movement, an anthology of essays challenging the narrative that technological progress and an increasingly globalized economy will lead us to a better world This collection of essays has been selected from 30 years of published articles, book chapters and blog posts by the staff of Local Futures, internationally known as pioneers of the emerging localization movement. Some of these writings involve a fundamental rethinking of our most basic assumptions—about progress, poverty, and happiness—while others seek the root causes of our multiple crises, from climate change and income inequality to the erosion of democracy and the rise of authoritarianism. All of them point towards the most strategic steps we can take to confront these problems and bring a healthier, happier world into being. Several of these prescient essays were written decades ago, but they have become even more relevant today as our crises deepen, and the need for systemic change becomes more apparent.

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Book SynopsisAn unparalleled how-to guide to citizen-sensing practices that monitor air pollution Modern environments are awash with pollutants churning through the air, from toxic gases and intensifying carbon to carcinogenic particles and novel viruses. The effects on our bodies and our planet are perilous. Citizens of Worlds is the first thorough study of the increasingly widespread use of digital technologies to monitor and respond to air pollution. It presents practice-based research on working with communities and making sensor toolkits to detect pollution while examining the political subjects, relations, and worlds these technologies generate. Drawing on data from the Citizen Sense research group, which worked with communities in the United States and the United Kingdom to develop digital-sensor toolkits, Jennifer Gabrys argues that citizen-oriented technologies promise positive change but then collide with entrenched and inequitable power structures. She asks: Who or what constitutes a “citizen” in citizen sensing? How do digital sensing technologies enable or constrain environmental citizenship? Spanning three project areas, this study describes collaborations to monitor air pollution from fracking infrastructure, to document emissions in urban environments, and to create air-quality gardens. As these projects show, how people respond to, care for, and struggle to transform environmental conditions informs the political subjects and collectives they become as they strive for more breathable worlds.Trade Review"The planet, the region, the community, the neighborhood, the block—these are all sensoria: sites of sense, sensation, and sensibility. Citizens of Worlds offers a powerful and instructive report on how to create everyday sensor infrastructures to register and combat the damage these social sensoria are suffering amidst today’s compromised atmospheres and environments. A critical handbook for theory and action."—Stefan Helmreich, Massachusetts Institute of Technology"In this timely and carefully crafted book, Jennifer Gabrys takes us on a fascinating journey to trace the multiple relations between citizens and their environments mediated though sensors. Throughout the book we encounter diverse sensing technologies, each making us reflect more deeply about how environments are made perceptible and how this allows us to act upon them in novel ways. The concept of ‘citizens of worlds’ sensitizes us to the multiple ways in which these novel experiences of the environment co-constitute political subjects. A mind-opening read inviting further explorations."—Ulrike Felt, University of Vienna

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Book SynopsisVaclav Smil is my favorite author… Numbers Don't Lie takes everything that makes his writing great and boils it down into an easy-to-read format. I unabashedly recommend this book to anyone who loves learning.--Bill Gates, GatesNotesFrom the author of How the World Really Works, an essential guide to understanding how numbers reveal the true state of our world--exploring a wide range of topics including energy, the environment, technology, transportation, and food production.Vaclav Smil's mission is to make facts matter. An environmental scientist, policy analyst, and a hugely prolific author, he is Bill Gates' go-to guy for making sense of our world. In Numbers Don't Lie, Smil answers questions such as: What's worse for the environment--your car or your phone? How much do the world's cows weigh (and what does it matter)? And what makes people happy? From data about our societies and populations, through measures of the

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Book SynopsisWhat the f*ck is 5G, and how does it even work?The world loves 4G phones, tablets and other gizmos and we take the tech for granted...but when that 4 grew up into the next-gen 5, it seems everyone perked up and started caring about phone networking tech. Journalists journaled, politicians, er, politicked, and tin-foil hat wearers reached for the extra-thick reinforced foil. Why all this fuss? Believe it or not, 5G could change the way you live. Because though it seems like smartphones are only good for tiktok and texting, 5G has the power to revolutionise how we interact with public spaces - from concerts and gigs to coffee shops, paving the way for foundational tech like virtual and augmented reality. This book will explain this missing radio link that will propel us into the future of self-driving cars and VR. Oh, and along the way we'll explore why 5G and coronavirus are very definitely and completely, utterly, not the same thing

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewAt once an incisive critique of new materialisms and a timely extension of Michel Foucault’s analytics of government, Thomas Lemke’s The Government of Things is indispensable for anyone concerned with emerging forms of environmentality and the missing politics of the 'material turn.' By revisiting key terms in Foucault's later writings—dispositive, technology, milieu—and aligning an analytics of government with key insights from feminist and postcolonial science and technology studies, Lemke gives us powerful tools to analyze and historicize the dynamic socio-techno-ecological arrangements that differentially and unequally materialize human and nonhuman life and to imagine how they might be composed otherwise. -- Bruce Braun, co-editor of Political Matter: Technoscience, Democracy, and Public LifeThe Government of Things is an invaluable exploration and appraisal of new materialist approaches, advancing the argument that, while such approaches have much to offer, they also have distinctive weaknesses in handling questions of history and politics. Thomas Lemke proposes to remedy these shortcomings by drawing from Michel Foucault’s 'tool-box,' thus situating the book's analysis at the vital intersection between science and technology studies and the study of governmental rationality. Particularly for those of us who share Lemke’s ambivalence about new materialism, this book is an essential guide to the limits of this approach—and to avenues for productively combining it with other modes of inquiry. -- Stephen J. Collier, co-author of The Government of Emergency: Vital Systems, Expertise, and the Politics of Security

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Book SynopsisHannah Arendt's most important contribution to political thought may be her well-known and often-cited notion of the "right to have rights." This book explores the theoretical and social foundations of Arendt's philosophy on human rights. It considers Arendt's key philosophical works along with her literary writings.Trade ReviewPeg Birmingham explores the theoretical and social foundations of Arendt's philosophy on human rights. Devoting special consideration to questions and issues surrounding Arendt's ideas of common humanity, human responsibility, and natality, Birmingham explains how these basic concepts support Arendt's theory of human rights. -- Joseph Haberer * SHOFAR *A new reading of Hannah Arendt's philosophy of human rights Hannah Arendt and Human Rights is to demonstrate how closely Arendt's account of the human condition . . . can figure into demonstrating that the discourse on human rights is not wholly negative, not wholly an empirical upshot of the disasters of the twentieth century. The idea of human rights we now possess articlates what, plausibly, might be thought to be involved in recognizing all others as members of the human community, thereby underwriting the political structures necessary to hold the fragile framework of the conditions of humanity in place. Birmingham can thus be thought to have demonstrated, at the very least, that pursuing the goal of realizing human rights is one direct way of pursuing an Arendtian politics.38 2008 -- J.M. Bernstein * New School for Social Research *The achievement of Birmingham's book is that it situates Arendt's much cited discussion of the right to have rights within the broader context of her later work. She persuasively shows that the political predicament of stateless people exemplified the problematic of modern politics with which she was implicitly preoccupied in her later work on freedom and praxis. . .Vol. 18.2 2009 -- ANDREW SCHAAP * University of Exeter, UK *Table of ContentsContentsAcknowledgmentsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction: The Problem of Human Rights1. The Event of Natality: The Ontological Foundation of Human Rights2. The Principle of Initium: Freedom, Power, and the Right to Have Rights3. The Principle of Givenness: Appearance, Singularity, and the Right to Have Rights4. The Predicament of Common ResponsibilityConclusion: The Political Institution of the Right to Have RightsNotesWorks CitedIndex

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Book SynopsisScience: A Four Thousand Year History rewrites science''s past. Instead of focussing on difficult experiments and abstract theories, Patricia Fara shows how science has always belonged to the practical world of war, politics, and business. Rather than glorifying scientists as idealized heroes, she tells true stories about real people - men (and some women) who needed to earn their living, who made mistakes, and who trampled down their rivals in their quest for success. Fara sweeps through the centuries, from ancient Babylon right up to the latest hi-tech experiments in genetics and particle physics, illuminating the financial interests, imperial ambitions, and publishing enterprises that have made science the powerful global phenomenon that it is today. She also ranges internationally, illustrating the importance of scientific projects based around the world, from China to the Islamic empire, as well as the more familiar tale of science in Europe, from Copernicus to Charles Darwin and beyond. Above all, this four thousand year history challenges scientific supremacy, arguing controversially that science is successful not because it is always right - but because people have said that it is right.Trade Reviewa surprise and a subversive pleasure * Tim Radford, Guardian: Science Bookclub *Review from previous edition Fara's book could not be more wide-ranging, beginning [with] the quest to take the story of science as far back as she story of science as far back as she possibly can, and ending bang up to date. The content is ambitious. jusiciously and fairly handled...The narrative moves forward in an engaging way, while the enthusiasm and opinions of the author are never far from the surface. It is a book to provoke thought and argument. An impressive achievement. * Jim Bennett, BBC History Magazine *Epic history of science * Jo Marchant, New Scientist *Wide-ranging and provocative...Romps through history at a terrific rate. * The Economist *An impressive and commendable effort to square the circle, to tell science's history, from the beginning. * Martin D. Gordin, Science *An engaging book...Fara is to be commended for stepping back - way back - to assess the history of science in its entirety * Robert J Malone, excutive director of the History of Science Society *Table of ContentsPART I: ORIGINS; PART II: INTERACTIONS; PART III: EXPERIMENTS; PART IV: INSTITUTIONS; PART V: LAWS; PART VI: INVISIBLES; PART VII

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Book Synopsis* Gives an up--to--date analysis of the relations between gender and technology * Deals with popular themes such as Donna Harraway's work on cyborgs * Provides a continuation to the arguments that Wajcman made in her previous Polity book Feminism Confronts Technology.Trade Review'Draws on a range of feminist perspectives, including the liberal and radical perspectives, to aid the analysis and to suggest fruitful ways forward for feminism.' Gender, Work & OrganizationTable of ContentsIntroduction: Feminist Utopia or Dystopia?. 1. Male Designs on Technology. From Access to Equity. Science as Ideology. Technology as Patriarchal. Sex, Class and Technology. 2. Technoscience Reconfigured. Beyond Technological Determinism. From Gender-Blind to Gender Aware. Combining Feminist and Technology Studies. 3. Virtual Gender. Networked Community. Cyberfeminism: ‘The clitoris is a direct line to the matrtix’. Performing Gender in Cyberspace. Technology as Freedom. 4. The Cyborg Solution. Embracing Science and Technology. From Man of Science to FemaleMan©. OncoMouseTM: Technologising Life and Reprogramming Nature. Send in the Cyborgs. 5. Metaphor and Materiality. Changing Technologies, Changing Subjectivities. Towards Technofeminism. Sociotechincal Practices: Expertise and Agency

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Book SynopsisAn accessible, practical and ultimately inspiring book that not only serves as a much-needed call to arms to end the plastic pandemic, but gives useful tools on how to make meaningful change in our everyday lives and advice on how to demand long-lasting action.Trade Review'Lucy is one of the true plastic-pollution pioneers' HUGO TAGHOLM, CEO Surfers Against Sewage'It is a great gift to be able to take a difficult and technical subject and turn it into a conversation with a friend that really stimulates you. Congratulations then to Lucy Siegle ...where most books on the environment blend the whiff of cordite with the style of Old Testament prophet. This book is special because it genuinely addresses the genius and threat of plastic and suggests solutions along the way. Most of all it is written in such a way as makes you want to read it rather than suffer through it. Intelligent, witty, passionate and serious of intent. This is a gem of a book- a primer and a call to action that will genuinely drive change.' SIR TIM SMIT, co-founder of the Eden Project'Feisty, excellent journalism, as you'd expect from Lucy Siegle, but also great practical ways we can all kick the plastic habit and start turning the tide. A must-buy, must-read book' KATE HUMBLE'Lucy Siegle turned the tide on the fashion pandemic in her last book. Now she turns her attention and brings her authority to bear on plastic, the environmental struggle of our age'. LIVIA FIRTH, UN Leader of Change and Founder of Eco Age Ltd.'Turning the Tide on Plastic is great, providing not just a cracking analysis of how we've let the plastics monster trash our planet, but a step-by-step guide on what we can do to start putting things right.' JONATHON PORRITT, Founder, Forum for the Future'Long before plastic pollution rose to the top of the public's consciousness, Lucy was a constant voice asking difficult questions and demanding answers on behalf of all of us. This excellent book tells the heartbreaking truth about the scale of the problem. It is a heroic wake-up call for everyone to take action, for the sake of future generations. I hope it will be part of the sea change our planet needs.' RICHARD WALKER, CEO Iceland'Turning The Tide on Plastic suggests simple and practical ways in which each one of us can help to reduce the use of plastic. I urge everyone to read it and take action.' DR JANE GOODALL DBE, world-leading primatologist and anthropologistAn impassioned and highly practical account of how to reduce our plastic consumption. -- Hannah Beckerman * OBSERVER *Informative -- Ella Walker * PRESS ASSOCIATION *[An] eye-opening manifesto...This is THE guide on how to turn the tide on plastic. * SUNDAY TIMES STYLE Instagram *A clear-sighted and immensely useful overview of the problems caused by plastic and the potential solutions. -- Ian Critchley * SUNDAY TIMES CULTURE *

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Book SynopsisAt a time of existential global challenges we need our best brainpower to solve them. We can no longer rely on the myth of the lone genius to create a breakthrough.As neuroscientist and bestselling author of The Science of Fate Hannah Critchlow shows, two heads have always been better than one. Almost everything we've ever achieved has been done by groups of people working together, sometimes across time and space. Like a hive of bees, or a flock of birds, our naturally social, interconnected brains are designed to function best collectively.New technology is helping us share our wisdom and knowledge much more diversely across race, class, gender and borders. And AI is sparking a revolution in our approach to intelligent thinking -linking us into fast-working brainnets for problem solving.Hannah Critchlow brings us an enlightening, invaluable guide to our future through the evolving new science of collective intelligence. She reveals what it says about us as human beings, shares compelling examples and stories, and shows us how best we can work collectively at work, in families, in any team situation to improve our outcomes, our wellbeing, and our prospects.Trade ReviewA lively examination of communal endeavour... important and correct -- Steven Poole * The Guardian *For tens of thousands of years we have tried to work out how we can best think. At last this genius work explains the past, the present and the future of our minds. Read - to be amazed. -- Bettany HughesHannah Critchlow has written a timely and engaging book about human intelligence and the challenges our brains face in the twenty-first century. It will make you think. It might even change for the better the way you think. -- Ian RankinA powerful manifesto for the strength of "we" thinking -- Marcus du SautoyHannah Critchlow's research into collective intelligence, team work, communication, performance, resilience, ethics etc from a neuroscience perspective is absolutely fascinating. -- Tatjana MarinkoFrom startling futuristic speculation to practical exercises in getting in touch with your own routine mental processes, Hannah Critchlow steers us with a sure hand and an unfailingly clear and engaging voice. This is a treasure of a book, exploding some damaging myths and encouraging us to re-imagine the values of relationality and receptivity in our thinking. -- Rowan WilliamsThis is absolutely wonderful, uplifting and soulful. I can't tell you how much we need joined-up thinking - this book and the thing itself. The future of humanity very much depends on how well we embrace these ground-breaking provocative ideas, to focus on the collective 'we' more than the individual 'me'. -- Daniel M. Davis

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Book Synopsis____________________What is AIQ? How does it work? Most importantly, how can it help us? Two leading data scientists offer an up-close and user-friendly look at artificial intelligence and how to harness its power for a better world. 'A positive and entertaining look at the great potential unlocked by marrying human creativity with powerful machines.' Steven D. Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics____________________Dozens of times per day, we all interact with intelligent machines that are constantly learning from the wealth of data now available to them. These machines, from smart phones to talking robots to self-driving cars, are remaking the world in the twenty first century in the same way that the Industrial Revolution remade the world in the nineteenth.AIQ is based on a simple premise: if you want to understand the modern world, then you have to know a little bit of the mathematical language spoken by intelligent machines. AIQ will teach you that language but in an unconventional way, anchored in stories rather than equations.Trade ReviewThere comes a time in the life of a subject when someone steps up and writes the book about it. AIQ explores the fascinating history of the ideas that drive this technology of the future and demystifies the core concepts behind it; the result is a positive and entertaining look at the great potential unlocked by marrying human creativity with powerful machines. -- Steven Levitt, bestselling co-author of FreakonomicsEntertaining and persuasive. The book’s goal is to explain how artificial intelligence delivers its incredible results, and Polson and Scott are like a pair of excitable mechanics lifting up the bonnet of a sports car. This is a passionate book, and it is a model of how to make data science accessible and exciting. -- James McConnachie * The Sunday Times *Grounding AI in tried-and-true methods makes it seem less alien: Computers are simply faster ways to solve familiar problems. Hence the book’s title, a portmanteau of AI and IQ—the point being that we need both. -- Sam Kean * Wall Street Journal *In an entertaining primer, two academic data scientists put the case for the defence on artificial intelligence, and show how we can harness its power for a better world. * The Times *At last, a book on the ideas behind AI and data science by people who really understand data. Cutting through the usual journalistic puff and myths, they clearly explain the underlying ideas behind the way that troughloads of data are being harnessed to build the algorithms that can carry out such extraordinary feats. But they are also clear about the limitations and potential risks of these algorithms, and the need for society to scrutinise and even regulate their use. A real page-turner, with fine stories and just enough detail: I learned a lot. -- David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk, University of Cambridge

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Book SynopsisRead this if you want to understand how to shape our technological future and reinvigorate democracy along the way.Reed Hastings, cofounder and CEO of NetflixA triumph: an analysis of the critical challenges facing our digital society that is as accessible as it is sophisticated. Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of New AmericaA forward-thinking manifesto from three Stanford professorsexperts who have worked at ground zero of the tech revolution for decadesthat reveals how big techs obsession with optimization and efficiency has sacrificed fundamental human values and outlines steps we can take to change course, renew our democracy, and save ourselves.In no more than the blink of an eye, a nave optimism about technologys liberating potential has given way to a dystopian obsession with biased algorithms, surveillance capitalism, and job-displacing robots. Yet too few of us see any alternative to accepting the onward marc

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Book SynopsisRobert Kirkman received his Ph.D. in philosophy from SUNY, Stony Brook. He is currently Assistant Professor of Science and Technology at the Lyman Briggs School at Michigan State University. His research interests encompass environmental philosophy, the history and philosophy of science, the history of philosophy, and suburban environments.

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