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

[David Alan Grier]

Tom
    I would say that the most informative author that I have read in the last two years beyond LaTour who was also new to me and Henry Adams to whom I return regularly, was Immanuel Wallerstein. I read all of his World Systems Theory books. I found them fascinating and engaging, though they always left me with the feeling that he was overreaching. 

David
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David Alan Grier
Sent from my iPhone

On 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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