[SIGCIS-Members] Summer reading for historians of computing -- your suggestions

[Rob MacDougall]

That's a great question, Tom.

The obvious suggestion that occurs to me, though I imagine list readers know
all about it already, is James Gleick's *The Information*, a wide ranging
tour of information as idea in linguistics, logic, telecommunications,
cryptography, quantum theory, and genetics. Oh, and the history of
computing.

Less obviously tied to the history of computing but still great summer (or
fall, or spring, or winter) reading for people with interests both
historical and scientific, is the burgeoning field of "big history". David
Christian's *Maps of Time* is to me the most impressive synthesis, but
McNeill & McNeill's The Human Web and Daniel Lord Smail's *On Deep History &
The Brain* are also worthwhile.

best,
Rob

Rob MacDougall
Assistant Professor, Department of History
Associate Director, Centre for American Studies
University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario N6A 5C2
CANADA
519-661-2111 +85305



On Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 3:36 PM, Thomas Haigh <thaigh at computer.org> wrote:

> Hello SIGCIS members,
>
> Please consider helping the community sharpen its engagement with new
> ideas.
> Back in graduate school I read feverishly in labor history, business
> history, history of technology social history, organizational sociology,
> etc
> in preparation for my oral examinations. My classes covered still more
> eclectic topics, ranging from a "greatest hits" of literary theory to
> nonparametric methods. Over the ten years since I physically left Penn I've
> been focused on an ever more specialized set of literatures, primarily the
> burgeoning history of computing field, which I know in ever more depth. In
> general I've also been doing more writing and less reading. This is
> probably
> pretty typical of the intellectual career of a tenured academic, expressed
> in the cliché that we come to know "more and more about less and less,"
> though as I don't have an opportunity to teach any courses related to my
> interests it may be a little more extreme.
>
> Last summer I finally read Latour's _Science in Action_ properly for the
> first time (lying outside a dacha on the outskirts of Kiev) and enjoyed it
> rather more than I'd expected. That hardly puts me on the cutting edge of
> intellectual fashion, but it did remind me of the pleasure of reading a
> really nicely constructed and provocative book of general interest.
>
> So, putting these two thoughts together I wondered what new work of equally
> broad interest might have appeared over the past ten years. I'm thinking of
> books of implicit rather than explicit relevance to the history of
> computing, either offering new intellectual perspectives or just serving as
> models of craft. Scholarly books that could be read for pleasure rather
> than
> duty. I'm sure suggestions would be of general interest to the SIGCIS
> community, as it heads to the beaches, lakes, mountains and dachas of the
> world.
>
> Suggestions should include the book and a short description of why it
> deserve to be read widely by historians of computing.
>
> I'd like to accumulate suggestions on our website, as comments to a blog
> post: http://www.sigcis.org/node/271. We just upgraded our site, so it's
> easy to post comments using our new WYSIWIG editor. You do need to login
> first, but accounts are free and you have probably already registered (if
> you forgot your password it can be reset online). While you are there,
> please also explore our latest posts from bloggers including Chris
> McDonald,
> Marie Hicks and Dave Walden. http://www.sigcis.org/blog
>
> However you could also just email a reply to the list if you have trouble
> logging in.
>
> Tom
>
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