Information History

Most of us take for granted that our books are vertical on our shelves with the spines facing out, but Henry Petroski, inveterately curious engineer, didn’t. As a result, listeners are guided along the astonishing evolution from papyrus scrolls boxed at Alexandria to upright books shelved at the Library of Congress. Petroski takes us into the pre-Gutenberg world, when books were so scarce they were chained to lecterns for security.

In this book, veteran constitutional lawyer Jonathan W. Emord explains the intellectual origins of freedom of speech from the Age of Enlightenment to the founding of the American republic. Today, government censorship of health information worldwide relies on the same mechanisms of prior restraint that were used in Europe from the 16th to the 18th centuries.

The volumes of data we now access can give unparalleled abilities to make predictions, respond to customer demand, and solve problems. But Big Brother’s shadow hovers over it. Although big data can set us free and enhance our lives, it has the potential to create an underclass and a totalitarian state. With big data ever present, you can’t afford to ignore it. In this book, acclaimed science writer Brian Clegg - a habitual early adopter of new technology - brings big data to life.

Information is power, and the time is now for digital liberation. Access Rules mounts a strong and hopeful argument for how informational tools at present in the hands of a few could instead become empowering machines for everyone. By forcing data-hoarding companies to open access to their data, we can reinvigorate both our economy and our society. Authors Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Thomas Ramge contend that if we disrupt monopoly power and create a level playing field, digital innovations can emerge to benefit us all.

You might think you had a front-row seat to the shocking scandals of Benghazi, the IRS targeting of conservatives, Fast & Furious, illegal email servers, mishandling America's secrets and cover-ups at the EPA. The rest of the story, told here for the first time, is even more troubling. In Watchdog, Congressman Darrell Issa reveals some of the worst of Washington, pulls back the curtain on business as usual in the Capitol, and lets in the sunshine of accountability.

In 2013, Edward Snowden shocked the world when he revealed that the United States government was secretly building a system of mass surveillance with the ability to gaze into the private lives of every person on earth. Phone calls, text messages, emails - nothing was safe from prying eyes. Now the man who risked everything to expose the truth about government spying describes for a new generation how he helped build that system, what motivated him to try to bring it down, and how young people can strive to protect their privacy in the digital age.

A Era da Informação, que mudou radicalmente nosso dia a dia, provocou também alterações enormes nas guerras, tanto nas declaradas quanto naquelas que se desenrolam nas cidades violentas. A comunicação se tornou rápida e eficiente, e se isso vale para as forças da lei vale também para os que vivem à margem da lei, criando, às vezes, um estado paralelo dentro do Estado. Claro que os militares precisam acompanhar a expansão tecnológica e o fluxo rápido de informações, para não ficarem atrás das organizações criminosas.

For decades, a few numbers came to define Chinese politics—until those numbers did not count what mattered and what they counted did not measure up. Seeking Truth and Hiding Facts argues that the Chinese government adopted a system of limited, quantified vision in order to survive the disasters unleashed by Mao Zedong's ideological leadership. Jeremy Wallace explains how that system worked and analyzes how the problems that accumulated in its blind spots led Xi Jinping to take drastic action.

Information Please, the popular radio quiz program that played experts for fall guys, was capital, dependable, adult radio fun for more than a decade (1938-1952). The fast-cracking experts John Kieran, omniscient sports columnist for the New York Times; Franklin Pierce Adams, New York Post columnist; Oscar Levant, composer, pianist, gag-stacked Broadway farer were acknowledged by listeners as the most knowing of know-it-alls.

Each of us has an ever-growing collection of personal digital data: documents, photographs, PowerPoint presentations, videos, music, emails, and texts sent and received. To access any of this, we have to find it. The ease (or difficulty) of finding something depends on how we organize our digital stuff.

Horace Everett Hooper - a volatile, self-assured, impulsive, and optimistic American, an autodidact and natural-born salesman - got into the book business at age 16, moved to the Western frontier and on to Chicago, and became hugely successful. With a brilliant adman named Henry Haxton as his partner, he went about buying publishing rights to the Encyclopedia Britannica, a work incredibly distinguished by entries from Charles Darwin, Thomas Malthus, Sir Walter Scott, and more.

Well over 100 years ago the data industry put in place a business model that trades our attention for news and entertainment. That model has evolved into a complex art and science of message targeting and content ownership that has splintered communities while simultaneously concentrating media ownership to a few massive corporations. Forged in War takes a critical look at the systems we use and how we ended up in a society that values data over personal liberty and commerce over the public good.

The dream of capturing and organizing knowledge is as old as history. From the archives of ancient Sumeria and the Library of Alexandria to the Library of Congress and Wikipedia, humanity has wrestled with the problem of harnessing its intellectual output. The timeless quest for wisdom has been as much about information storage and retrieval as creative genius. In Cataloging the World, Alex Wright introduces us to a figure who stands out in the long line of thinkers and idealists who devoted themselves to the task.

Small Wars, Big Data provides groundbreaking perspectives for how small wars can be better strategized and favorably won to the benefit of the local population.

As one of our leading science writers, James Gleick has always been ahead of the curve. He chronicled the genius of the great physicist Richard Feynman and explained chaos theory in a way all of us could understand. Now, in a collection of previously published pieces, he muses on the Internet revolution that has taken place all around us.

Today, nearly one million books are published each year. But is the era of the book as we know it - a codex of bound pages - coming to an end? And if it is, should we celebrate its demise and the creation of a democratic digital future, or mourn an irreplaceable loss?

Hace ahora veinticinco años se publicaba La Casa, el primer libro que se atrevía en España a desvelar los misterios del entonces Cesid, ahora CNI. Fue tal el impacto que produjo, que durante tres meses fue el libro de no ficción más vendido en toda España. Hasta en el Congreso dos diputados -Álvarez Cascos, del PP, y Mur, del PAR- criticaron al entonces gobierno socialista por no contar lo que ya sabían gracias a La Casa.

The Reverend Joseph Julius Jackson was an African American preacher who published The History of the Black Man in 1921, a book which covers the history of the African people from Ethiopia and Egypt. Rev. Jackson believed that a lack of historical knowledge by the Afro American community about their past and origins has undermined their pride, and that a better knowledge of the contribution of the black man to civilization would ameliorate the situation.

Our world is chock-full of fascinating facts, unbelievable but true stories, and mind-blowing trivia. This book is your one-stop guide to all the extraordinary, shocking, and enthralling information you didn’t know you needed to learn. Impress your friends and family with a vast knowledge of topics guaranteed to stimulate interesting conversations.

Finde heraus, ob das Wirtschaftsrecht-Studium die richtige Option für Deine Zukunft ist. Interessierst Du Dich, welche Inhalte beim Wirtschaftsrecht-Studium auf Dich warten. Möchtest Du Dich optimal auf Dein Wirtschaftsrechtstudium vorbereiten Stellst Du Dir die Frage, wie es nach dem Studium weiter geht und wie ein optimaler Berufseinstieg aussieht? "In diesem Ratgeber erfährst du alles, was du schon immer rund um das Wirtschaftsrecht wissen solltest und vor allem wissen wolltest....".