An accessible primer for beginners and an astute treatment of blockchain’s future promise for others.
A demystification of blockchain and cryptocurrency coupled with a wide-ranging assessment of its transformative potential.
Depending upon whom you ask, blockchain is either a promising technology, the foundation of an emergent sociopolitical revolution, or a flash in the pan. Debut author and consultant Radocchia not only meticulously clarifies blockchain as a technological innovation, but also sheds light on where it came from and asserts that it will result in seismic changes in commerce and other fields. First, she straightforwardly defines blockchain as an “accounting tool”—a “distributed ledger” that facilitates peer-to-peer transactions, independent of any governing middleman. Because this ledger records each transaction and can’t be revised or erased, the need for such policing authority is eliminated, she says—and by extension, the need to trust such an authority. In fact, Radocchia contends, blockchain is a “trustless” system in which verification is no longer supplied by “centralized clearinghouses.” If blockchain is the “operating system of the future,” she asserts, it can also become the “means of facilitating decentralized trust on a global scale”—an agent of change for both traditional and emerging industries. The author goes on to discuss the technology’s many possible applications, and she furnishes a particularly compelling look at the ways in which it might solve problems in the pharmaceutical industry. The best part of this impressively lucid and provocative study, however, is its appraisal of the technology as a response to the dislocations of globalization and the ensuing, pervasive suspicion of governing bodies. The author has graduate school experience in anthropology and technology, and her eclectic knowledge shines through in her thoughtfully cogent analysis of blockchain’s geopolitical promise. However, her effort does suffer from repetition—she never tires of explaining the concept of decentralization, for instance—and as a consequence, it’s considerably longer than it needs to be.
An accessible primer for beginners and an astute treatment of blockchain’s future promise for others.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5445-0443-8
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Machine Elf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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