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Tag: history

Book Review: Brooke Gladstone and Josh Neufeld’s “The Influencing Machine”

This is a terrific primer on media history and one reporter’s take on how average citizens can promote a free, open news environment.  Aided by Josh Neufeld’s clever illustrations, Brooke Gladstone takes the reader on a whirlwind journey through media history’s most tenuous moments, setting her sights on the perennial conflict between authoritarian power, which […]

Book Review: Robert Wright’s “Nonzero”

This book came to my attention by way of David Brin, who claims it as mandatory reading for anyone interested in saving the world.  I’m not sure if I’d go that far, but the assertion that positive sum games play a critical role in biological and cultural evolution is definitely significant, especially insofar as it […]

Book Review: Neal Stephenson’s “Quicksilver”

It is always painful to write a negative review of a beloved author, but less so when the book in question is as desultory and tedious as this one.  Neal Stephenson is probably my favorite living author, but making it through the first volume of his Baroque Cycle (which is really three books in one) […]