War in the Age of Intelligent Machines (Paper) (Zone Books) - Softcover

Manuel De Landa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0942299752 ISBN 13: 9780942299755

Publisher: Zone Books, 1992

Synopsis

In the aftermath of the methodical destruction of Iraq during the Persian Gulf War, the power and efficiency of new computerized weapons and surveillance technology have become chillingly apparent. For Manuel DeLanda, however, this new weaponry has a significance that goes far beyond military applications; he shows how it represents a profound historical shift in the relation of human beings both to machines and to information. The recent emergence of intelligent and autonomous bombs and missiles equipped with artificial perception and decision-making capabilities is, for Delanda, part of a much larger transfer of cognitive structures from humans to machines in the late twentieth century.War in the Age of Intelligent Machines provides a rich panorama of these astonishing developments; it details the mutating history of information analysis and machinic organization from the mobile siege artillery of the Renaissance, the clockwork armies of the Thirty Years War, the Napoleonic campaigns, and the Nazi blitzkrieg up to present-day cybernetic battle-management systems and satellite reconnaissance networks. Much more than a history of warfare, DeLanda's account is an unprecedented philosophical and historical reflection on the changing forms through which human bodies and materials are combined, organized, deployed, and made effective.Manuel DeLanda has published essays on philosophy and film theory. He is a computer programmer and a film artist.A Swerve Edition, distributed for Zone Books

Edition details

• Publisher: Zone Books
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0942299752
• ISBN 13: 9780942299755
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272