An informed look at the social impact of the Internet.
Digital-age guru Shirky (Interactive Telecommunications/New York Univ.; Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, 2008, etc.) argues that new technology is making it possible for people to collaborate in ways that have the potential to change society.
By “cognitive surplus,” the author refers to the free time of the world's educated citizenry, which amounts to more than one trillion hours per year. In recent decades, the author writes, most people have devoted much of that time-20 hours per week-to watching television. But that is changing. Young people are now spending less time as passive TV viewers, or consumers, and more time using fast, interactive media as producers and sharers in pursuit of their favorite activities. Their behavior demonstrates that in a wired society it is possible to turn free time into a shared global resource that can be harnessed to connect individuals to achieve beneficial outcomes. Examples include such innovations as Wikipedia, the online free-content encyclopedia; PickupPal.com, a global rideshare community; and Ushahidi.com, which was created to gather citizen-generated reports on acts of violence in Kenya. In this well-written and highly speculative book, Shirky suggests that in these ways new media has enormous potential to transform our lives. No longer an abstraction called “cyberspace,” social-media tools are now part of daily life, he writes. As society's connective tissue, they are flexible, cheap and inclusive, and allow people to behave in increasingly generous and social ways. The author discusses the many factors that have given rise to social media and suggests the conditions that will best allow voluntary groups to take advantage of the world's aggregate free time to benefit society. “If we want to create new forms of civic value,” he writes, “we need to improve the ability of small groups to try radical things.” Shirky may be overly optimistic about the possible benefits of social media, but he makes clear their growing global importance.
An informed look at the social impact of the Internet.Pub Date: June 14, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-59420-253-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Though well-informed, this history of astronomy caters to the insider rather than the intrigued novice. Science journalist Croswell presents a history of the Milky Way focusing on the changing theories about its origin, age, size, and shape. He explains why some stars are more luminous than others and describes the discovery that key elements like helium, lithium, and hydrogen were formed ``in the fiery aftermath of the big bang.'' In early chapters he offers simple, elucidating metaphors to make his sophisticated material more familiar. But this kind of translation is quickly abandoned, and the book contains too much math and physics and too little explanation of how the theories connect and what's at stake to appeal to readers with little background in astronomy. It becomes clear that, as he writes, the story of the Milky Way is a ``deeply human story, full of colorful and controversial characters,'' but Croswell takes the stance of an insider rather than a journalist, providing only snippets and sketchy portraits. Some stories are fleshed out, like the collaboration of astronomers E. Margaret and Geoffrey Burbidge, William Fowler, and Fred Hoyle (commonly known as BÞFH) on the theory that the elements originated in the stars; the Nobel Prize that went to Fowler alone for this work; and the obstacles women faced breaking down the sexist barriers in astronomy. Croswell's narrative of these events provides a rare and welcome balance to his zeal for technical detail. This work will leave readers feeling as though they are looking at the heavens through the wrong end of a telescope.
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-385-47213-7
Page Count: 376
Publisher: Anchor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
In this sturdy if at times tortured field report cum memoir of a geochemical visit to a series of ice-covered lakes in Antarctica, Green takes measure not just of calcium, phosphate, and magnesium, but of his life and the mystery of nature as well. The McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica host a string of lakes with which Green (Chemistry/Miami Univ., Ohio) has become mesmerized. What are their origins, what do they have to say about the nature of weathering and mineral transport, and what about those strange temperature inversions? Chemistry is Green's passion, and it is not only the chemistry of the lake and laboratory that we get in spades, but a pleasurable poke through the history of the science as well: Dalton and Rutherford, Einstein and Bohr, and dozens more. These asides nicely clarify his arcane fieldwork. Shedding further light are finely honed flashes of pure science writing—his discourse on the physical behavior of water is handled with impressive dexterity, as are the explanations of conductivity units and Klemmerer readings (both important aspects of his lake studies). While it may be forgiven that such a sere, remote landscape conjures repeat visits to Green's family history, it is when Green gets mystical that he crashes through the thin ice of natura poetica. Readers are informed that ``the maple seed glides like a wooded blade in whispers from the parent tree,'' and that water ``punctuates waking and dream with longing.'' Say what? Such stuff is a squandering of Green's obvious narrative talents—his depiction of life at base camp is so grungily immediate, you can almost smell the body odor—and diminishes much of the pleasure this book otherwise has to offer. The clear south polar light, working its magic on Green's science writing, should have revealed to him that it was not his destiny to be bard of the crystal desert.
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-517-58759-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harmony
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
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