Here are 100 books that The Nature of Technology fans have personally recommended if you like
The Nature of Technology.
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As a teenager, I visited my uncle, who farmed rice in southern Haiti. I met a community that helped me understand that food is not just about dollars and cents—it’s about belonging, it’s about identity. This experience inspired me to become an aid worker. For the last 20+ years, I have worked to mend broken food systems all over the world. If we don’t get food right, hunger will threaten the social fabric.
I found this book to be well-written and well-documented. While it does not focus solely on food systems, it does explain how a lack of food contributed to the demise of the societies explored in this book, such as the Greenland Norse and Easter Island. Diamond offers a stark warning about how a weak food system can undermine an entire civilization.
From the author of Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive is a visionary study of the mysterious downfall of past civilizations.
Now in a revised edition with a new afterword, Jared Diamond's Collapse uncovers the secret behind why some societies flourish, while others founder - and what this means for our future.
What happened to the people who made the forlorn long-abandoned statues of Easter Island? What happened to the architects of the crumbling Maya pyramids? Will we go the same way, our skyscrapers one day standing derelict and overgrown like the…
I have been studying, writing, and teaching economic history for nearly four decades. I was drawn to the field because it let me combine my passion for understanding how the past and present are connected with my fascination with the insights derived from the natural sciences. When I started studying economic history, the discipline was still relatively new, having grown out of pioneering research in the 1950s and 1960s by a small band of innovative scholars. During my career, I have met many of these intellectual giants personally, and I have watched the discipline of economic history mature and grow in both its methods and intellectual scope.
If you read one book about the history of slavery, this should be it. This brief volume sums up decades of Wright’s scholarship about how the institution of slavery shaped virtually every aspect of American economic development and left a lasting imprint long after Emancipation. It is concise, eye-opening, and insightful. It also offers a broader lesson in the ways in which economic institutions affect aspects of behavior in unanticipated ways.
Through an analysis of slavery as an economic institution, Gavin Wright presents an innovative look at the economic divergence between North and South in the antebellum era. He draws a distinction between slavery as a form of work organisation, the aspect that has dominated historical debates, and slavery as a set of property rights. Slave-based commerce remained central to the eighteenth-century rise of the Atlantic economy, not because slave plantations were superior as a method of organizing production, but because slaves could be put to work on sugar plantations that could not have attracted free labor on economically viable terms.
I have been studying, writing, and teaching economic history for nearly four decades. I was drawn to the field because it let me combine my passion for understanding how the past and present are connected with my fascination with the insights derived from the natural sciences. When I started studying economic history, the discipline was still relatively new, having grown out of pioneering research in the 1950s and 1960s by a small band of innovative scholars. During my career, I have met many of these intellectual giants personally, and I have watched the discipline of economic history mature and grow in both its methods and intellectual scope.
The British Industrial Revolution is the single most important event in shaping the modern world. Since 1800 the standard of living in Western Industrial nations has increased nearly 40-fold, and in the last half-century, this prosperity has spread more widely. Writing in an engaging style, Clark offers a unique and provocative account of these changes and their causes.
Why are some parts of the world so rich and others so poor? Why did the Industrial Revolution - and the unprecedented economic growth that came with it - occur in eighteenth-century England, and not at some other time, or in some other place? Why didn't industrialization make the whole world rich - and why did it make large parts of the world even poorer? In "A Farewell to Alms", Gregory Clark tackles these profound questions and suggests a new and provocative way in which culture - not exploitation, geography, or resources - explains the wealth, and the poverty, of…
I've always been fascinated with history. The study of economic history allows me to combine my passion for understanding the past with a rigorous and systematic set of analytical tools. In my own work I'm interested in understanding the economic, political, and institutional transformations that have created the modern world. The books I've selected here help us better understand quite how different the past and they have proven to be invaluable to me as inspirations.
This is a landmark book in political economy and economic history.
Douglass North won the Noble Prize in Economics in part for the study of institutions in economic history.
This was his final work (coauthored with Wallis and Weingast). And while the lessons of North's earlier work on institutions have been incorporated into the wider body of scholarship in economic history and development economics, I think the lessons of this book haven't been fully absorbed.
The fundamental idea is that all societies face "the problem of violence". They have to deter individuals from resorting to violence in order to take what they want. But the means through which society limits violence vary and are often detrimental to long-run economic growth. There is thus a "natural" form of government that is common throughout history, capable of producing social order but not widespread prosperity.
Achieving sustained economic growth in the long-run requires…
All societies must deal with the possibility of violence, and they do so in different ways. This book integrates the problem of violence into a larger social science and historical framework, showing how economic and political behavior are closely linked. Most societies, which we call natural states, limit violence by political manipulation of the economy to create privileged interests. These privileges limit the use of violence by powerful individuals, but doing so hinders both economic and political development. In contrast, modern societies create open access to economic and political organizations, fostering political and economic competition. The book provides a framework…
Everyone uses technology, but few stop to think about where these technologies come from and what this trajectory means to humanity. During my professional career, I have dedicated myself to public service focused on security and defense as a U.S. Army officer, senior government civilian, and in think tanks, industry, and academia. My journey has taken me to over 60 countries where I have witnessed humankind's best and worst. The difference is often in how our technologies are used—to build cities, feed populations, and develop life-saving vaccines or to oppress peoples or as tools of war.
Extraordinary book that has tapped into the most important hardware of the AI revolution and will be foundational in the emerging Age of Augmented Humanity. This book provides the detail that allows the reader to understand the history and current state of global semiconductor design and the manufacturing community.
It also lays out in exquisite detail the importance of the technology in the future and how it needs to be protected. In no small measure, the book was instrumental in highlighting the importance of semiconductors in todays’ digital world.
***Winner of the Financial Times Business Book of the Year award***
'Pulse quickening. A nonfiction thriller - equal parts The China Syndrome and Mission Impossible' New York Times
An epic account of the decades-long battle to control the world's most critical resource-microchip technology
Power in the modern world - military, economic, geopolitical - is built on a foundation of computer chips. America has maintained its lead as a superpower because it has dominated advances in computer chips and all the technology that chips have enabled. (Virtually everything runs on chips: cars, phones, the stock market, even the electric grid.) Now…
I’ve been fascinated by the power of technology to make the world a better place since I read Robert A. Heinlein’s Rocket Ship Galileo at the age of six. I was born in 1969, the year of the first crewed moon landing and the first connection on ARPANET, the network that started the internet. Space, technology, and the future have always been central to my career as a writer. I began investigating DARPA while writing a book on commercial spaceflight, was amazed by the breadth of technologies the agency helped launch and made it the topic of my next book.
Somewhere between wide-eyed optimism about the potential of human ingenuity and skepticism about technology’s ability to save us from ourselves lies Annie Jacobsen’s book. It covers DARPA’s founding and the first fifty years before reporting on projects active at the time of the book’s writing (it came out in 2015).
The result is a balanced mix of history, analysis, and you-are-there reporting in a highly readable narrative. The book contains the best explanation I’ve seen of DARPA’s controversial, post-911 Total Information Awareness program and raises important questions about when, how, and why governments should conduct research and development in secret.
No one has ever written the history of the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful and most controversial military science R&D agency. In the first-ever history of the organization, New York Times bestselling author Annie Jacobsen draws on inside sources, exclusive interviews, private documents and declassified memos to paint a picture of DARPA, or "the Pentagon's brain," from its Cold War inception in 1958 to the present.
This is the book on DARPA - a compelling narrative about this clandestine intersection of science and the American military and the often frightening results.
Everyone uses technology, but few stop to think about where these technologies come from and what this trajectory means to humanity. During my professional career, I have dedicated myself to public service focused on security and defense as a U.S. Army officer, senior government civilian, and in think tanks, industry, and academia. My journey has taken me to over 60 countries where I have witnessed humankind's best and worst. The difference is often in how our technologies are used—to build cities, feed populations, and develop life-saving vaccines or to oppress peoples or as tools of war.
When I first saw the book, I thought, “What an odd title for a book on technology?” But the adage that you can’t tell a book by its cover was 100 percent accurate. The author takes the reader on a remarkable journey to understand how the technologies of the day, ordinary technologies—such as vaccines, pasteurization, drug regulation and testing, antibiotics, and industrial safety--have transformed humanity, societies, and our daily lives.
The author leaves the best for last, as he asserts that the most transformative technology has been access to clean water. The results are measured in greater longevity and quality of life for humanity. Using these everyday technologies, the author provides a clear articulation of why technology is so vital to our future.
“Offers a useful reminder of the role of modern science in fundamentally transforming all of our lives.” —President Barack Obama (on Twitter)
“An important book.” —Steven Pinker, The New York Times Book Review
The surprising and important story of how humans gained what amounts to an extra life, from the bestselling author of How We Got to Now and Where Good Ideas Come From
In 1920, at the end of the last major pandemic, global life expectancy was just over forty years. Today, in many parts of the world, human beings can expect to live more than eighty years. As…
Everyone uses technology, but few stop to think about where these technologies come from and what this trajectory means to humanity. During my professional career, I have dedicated myself to public service focused on security and defense as a U.S. Army officer, senior government civilian, and in think tanks, industry, and academia. My journey has taken me to over 60 countries where I have witnessed humankind's best and worst. The difference is often in how our technologies are used—to build cities, feed populations, and develop life-saving vaccines or to oppress peoples or as tools of war.
This book speaks to the opportunities and challenges for the participants in today’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) competition. It highlights the barriers to entry in this tech war—high costs, advanced hardware such as semiconductors and high-performance computing, and perhaps most importantly, access to human capital.
This book provides a roadmap for thinking about the current AI tech competition. It also highlights what is at stake if the United States does not lead in this space. The idea of AI development led by an authoritarian regime or a nation that does not place humanity first could arrive at solutions that are unfriendly and perhaps even hostile to humanity.
We like to think that we are in control of the future of "artificial" intelligence. The reality, though, is that we--the everyday people whose data powers AI--aren't actually in control of anything. When, for example, we speak with Alexa, we contribute that data to a system we can't see and have no input into--one largely free from regulation or oversight. The big nine corporations--Amazon, Google, Facebook, Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba, Microsoft, IBM and Apple--are the new gods of AI and are short-changing our futures to reap immediate financial gain.
In this book, Amy Webb reveals the pervasive, invisible ways in which…
I’m an economist, now in my fiftieth year as a professor at Harvard. While much of my work has focused on economic policy – questions like the effects of government budget deficits, guidelines for the conduct of U.S. monetary policy, and what actions to take in response to a banking or more general financial crisis – in recent years I’ve also addressed broader issues surrounding the connections between economics and society. Several years ago, in The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, I examined the implications of our economy’s growth, or stagnation, for the social, political, and ultimately moral character of our society. My most recent book explores the connections between economic thinking and religious thinking.
Bell, one of the greatest sociologists of the twentieth century, argues that having the right culture is essential for capitalism (or any other economic or political system) to flourish – and I certainly agree. But he goes further: he worries that over time the economic gains that capitalism delivers end up undermining the cultural conditions that allow capitalism to flourish in the first place. His book is about the role of culture more broadly, not religion in particular, but religion certainly fits within the overall argument.
With a new afterword by the author, this classic analysis of Western liberal capitalist society contends that capitalism,and the culture it creates,harbors the seeds of its own downfall by creating a need among successful people for personal gratification,a need that corrodes the work ethic that led to their success in the first place. With the end of the Cold War and the emergence of a new world order, this provocative manifesto is more relevant than ever.
As a free man of flesh-and-blood I trust in time-tested verities and traditions; as a spiritual entity I am a man of faith; and as a thinking being I explore in my writing the malleability of consciousness and reality. Through a broad range of experiences I offer images for the minds of readers in novels of a twisted magical realism. I seek the mysteries of God, the beauty of poetry, and the freedom to explore all and everything. I am an American State National who critiques modern society, culture, and politics as an independent scholar who will not be silenced. Awaken, oh human beans, from normative conditioning and screen-gazing complacency!
An open mind and creative imagination are needed to explore reality. In making sense of the most significant science fiction writer of the 20th century, Philip K. Dick, we might refer to the dying words of his Berkeley buddy, Jack Spicer: “My vocabulary did this to me.” Like a Zen stone mason in a hall of mirrors, Dick often seems to depart from the most inscrutable of semantic pebbles. Exegesisoffers us a lexical labyrinth infused with the most profound heuristic paranoia, to yield a vast shifting matrix of uncountable speculative origins. Anyone who reads this book and does not write at least one of their own, even as a prophylactic, is indeed “duller than the fattest weed on the wharf of Lethe.” (Paraphrased from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act I, Scene 5)
Based on thousands of pages of typed and handwritten notes, journal entries, letters, and story sketches, The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick is the magnificent and imaginative final work of an author who dedicated his life to questioning the nature of reality and perception, the malleability of space and time, and the relationship between the human and the divine.
Edited and introduced by Pamela Jackson and Jonathan Lethem, this will be the definitive presentation of Dick's brilliant, and epic, final work. In The Exegesis, Dick documents his eight-year attempt to fathom what he called "2-3-74", a postmodern visionary experience of…
