The Anarchist in the Library: How the Clash Between Freedom and Control is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System - Hardcover

Vaidhyanathan, Siva

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0465089844 ISBN 13: 9780465089840

Publisher: Basic Books, 2004

Synopsis

A radically new take on the coming battle over information, from a fast-rising academic star. From Napster to Total Information Awareness to flash mobs, the debate over information technology in our lives has revolved around a single question: How closely do we want cyberspace to resemble the real world? Siva Vaidhyanathan enters this debate with a seminal insight: While we've been busy debating how to make cyberspace imitate the world, the world has been busy imitating cyberspace. More and more of our social, political, and religious activities are modeling themselves after the World Wide Web. Vaidhyanathan tells us the key information structure of our time, and the key import from cyberspace into the world, is the "peer-to-peer network. " Peer-to-peer networks have always existed--but with the rise of electronic communication, they are suddenly coming into their own. And they are drawing the outlines of a battle for information that will determine much of the culture and politics of our century, affecting everything from society to terrorism, from religion to the latest social fads. The Anarchist in the Library is a radically original look at how this battle defines one of the major fault lines of twenty-first-century civilization.

About this title

About the Author

Siva Vaidhyanathan, a cultural histo rian and media scholar, is Assistant Professor of Culture and Communication at New York University. His research has been profiled on National Public Radio, CNN, International Herald-Tribune Televisio n, and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. He live s in New York City.

Edition details

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0465089844
• ISBN 13: 9780465089840
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 253