num_pages: 464
description: Dazzling.  Financial Times As lives offline and online merge even more it is easy to forget how we got here. Rise of the Machines reclaims the spectacular story of cybernetics one of the twentieth centurys pivotal ideas. Springing from the mind of mathematician Norbert Wiener amid the devastation of World War II the cybernetic vision underpinned a host of seductive myths about the future of machines. Cybernetics triggered blissful cults and military gizmos the Whole Earth Catalog and the air forces foray into virtual space as well as crypto-anarchists fighting for internet freedom. In Rise of the Machines Thomas Rid draws on unpublished sourcesincluding interviews with hippies anarchists sleuths and spiesto offer an unparalleled perspective into our anxious embrace of technology. 32 pages of illustrations
language: English
title: Rise of the Machines: A Cybernetic History
publisher: W. W. Norton & Company