Technologies of Freedom (Belknap Press) (Paperback)

by Ithiel de Sola Pool (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 316 pages
• Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (July 1, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674872339
• ISBN-13: 978-0674872332
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #444,803 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an elloquent defense of techno-freedom, February 2, 2009

By	Adam Thierer (think tank analyst in Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This technological tour de force is simply breathtaking in its polemical power and predictive capabilities. Reading this book more than 20 years after it was published, one comes to believe that Pool must have possessed a crystal ball or had a Nostradamus-like ability to foresee the future.

For example, long before anyone else had envisioned what we now refer to as "cyberspace," Pool was describing it in this book. "Networked computers will be the printing presses of the twenty-first century," he argued in his remarkably prescient chapter on electronic publishing. "Soon most published information will disseminated electronically." Few probably believed him in 1983, but no one doubts him now. Meanwhile, he did all this while also providing a passionate defense of technological freedom and freedom of speech in the electronic age. If you care about those things, read this book. It is a masterpiece.

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