An important record of forward-looking thought cut short.
Collected writings of Aaron Swartz (1986-2013), prescient programmer and technology critic.
Swartz remains a beloved figure, due in part to the unfortunate circumstances of his death. In 2013, he committed suicide following an arguably overzealous federal prosecution for downloading large quantities of scholarly articles while at MIT. This approachable anthology allows his ideas and general philosophy regarding the importance of transparency to further speak to his legacy. The large volume of Swartz’s writings has been organized into sections, with notes by writers and scholars, including Cory Doctorow, David Segal, Lawrence Lessig, and Astra Taylor. Lessig provides the introduction. “In the essays collected here,” he writes, “you can watch a boy working on many problems at the same time….Few of us will ever come close to the influence this boy had.” The organizational focus on such diverse topics as “Free Culture,” computers, politics, “Unschool,” and books (in his spare time, Swartz wrote enthusiastic reviews from his prolific reading, promoting the work of like-minded thinkers) reveals the broad nature of Swartz’s worldview. In his own words, he wanted to counter “a social norm that how much we discuss something should be roughly proportional to its importance.” His writing is ideally suited to longer, discursive essays on prickly social issues—much like his professed idol, David Foster Wallace—shown here in sharp, funny pieces on the capture of the political process by special interests and on the creativity-killing nature of contemporary public education. Much of Swartz’s work originally appeared online, and some essays discuss his work on projects like Wikipedia and the RSS web format. Swartz seems clearheaded and generous in his discussion of technology while always emphasizing collaboration and open access: “I often think that the world needs to be a lot more organized.” While his conceptual and argumentative brilliance is certainly present, there’s also a youthful naiveté here, which makes for a wistful reading experience.
An important record of forward-looking thought cut short.Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62097-066-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
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