The Strange and Fascinating Story of the World's Most Common Man-Made Material
Concrete: We use it for our buildings, bridges, dams, and roads. We walk on it, drive on it, and many of us live and work within its walls. But very few of us know what it is. We take for granted this ubiquitous substance, which both literally and figuratively comprises much of modern civilization's constructed environment; yet the story of its ......
The railroad station was at the heart of every town the trains passed through on Delmarva. These buildings were more than walls, floors, ceilings, and roofs--they served as the very heartbeat of their community. More than freight and passengers traveled through these buildings. News came in from the outside world, family members arrived home, and ......
A history of steamboats and railroads in the United States prior to the Civil War. In the first half of the nineteenth century, transportation in the United States underwent an extraordinary transformation. Steamboats and railroads turned long-distance travel from an arduous undertaking into a regularized commodity: travel became something that ......
Essential Writings on Software Preservation and Game Histories
A leading voice in technology studies shares a collection of essential essays on the preservation of software and history of games. Since the early 2000s, Henry E. Lowood has led or had a key role in numerous initiatives devoted to the preservation and documentation of virtual worlds, digital games, and interactive simulations, establishing ......
A Next Big Idea Club "Must Read" for December 2023 As all aspects of our social and informational lives increasingly migrate online, the line between what is "real" and what is digitally fabricated grows ever thinner-and that fake content has undeniable real-world consequences. A History of Fake Things on the Internet takes the long view of how ......
Power, Inequality, and the Political Economy of IT
How code shapes power and inequality across technology, governance, and global political economies. Code-whether software routines, legal frameworks, or informal social norms-shapes the world around us in profound and often invisible ways. In Just Code, editors Jeffrey R. Yost and Gerardo Con Diaz bring together a diverse group of scholars to ......
Books are our first and most lasting form of information technology. Books preserve ideas, yes, but they also provoke new ones-- they are true tools for thinking. In The Idea Machine, Joel J. Miller shows that books are one of the most important but overlooked factors in the making of our contemporary world. And they still have lessons to teach ......
Topics cover the ways in which French and Francophone histories shape various themes, including transnational scientific exchange; technology and debates about modernity; gender in conceptions of mind, body, and disease; and the intersections of science and empire. Contributors. Margaret Carlyle, Zohar Sapir Dvir, Volny Fages, JErOme Lamy, ......