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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">Dear SIGCIS colleagues:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">Just a short note to announce the publication of my book
<i>Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile</i>, which was just released from MIT Press. I am pasting the back cover blurb below. More information about the book is available at: <a href="http://cyberneticrevolutionaries.com" target="_blank">http://cyberneticrevolutionaries.com</a>.</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; ">B<font class="Apple-style-span" size="2">est wishes for the holidays,<o:p></o:p></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p><font class="Apple-style-span" size="2"> </font></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><font class="Apple-style-span" size="2">Eden<o:p></o:p></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p><font class="Apple-style-span" size="2"> </font></o:p></p>
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<font class="Apple-style-span" size="2">----</font></p>
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<font class="Apple-style-span" size="2">Book Summary:<o:p></o:p></font></p>
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<font class="Apple-style-span" size="2">In<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i style="border-style:initial;border-color:initial"><span style="border:none windowtext 1.0pt;
mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;padding:0in">Cybernetic Revolutionaries</span></i>,
Eden Medina tells the history of two intersecting utopian visions, one political and one technological. The first was Chile’s experiment with peaceful socialist change under Salvador Allende; the second was the simultaneous attempt to build a computer system
that would manage Chile’s economy. Neither vision was fully realized—Allende’s government ended with a violent military coup; the system, known as Project Cybersyn, was never completely implemented—but they hold lessons for today about the relationship between
technology and politics.<o:p></o:p></font></p>
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<font class="Apple-style-span" size="2"> <o:p></o:p></font></p>
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<font class="Apple-style-span" size="2">Drawing on extensive archival material and interviews, Medina examines the cybernetic system envisioned by the Chilean government—which was to feature holistic system design, decentralized management, human-computer interaction,
a national telex network, near real-time control of the growing industrial sector, and modeling of the behavior of dynamic systems. She also describes, and documents with photographs, the network’s Star Trek-like operations room, which featured swivel chairs
with armrest control panels, a wall of screens displaying data, and flashing red lights to indicate economic emergencies.<o:p></o:p></font></p>
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<font class="Apple-style-span" size="2"> <o:p></o:p></font></p>
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<font class="Apple-style-span" size="2">Studying Project Cybersyn today helps us understand not only the technological ambitions of a government in the midst of political change but also the limitations of the Chilean revolution. This history further shows
how human attempts to combine the political and the technological with the goal of creating a more just society can open new technological, intellectual, and political possibilities. Technologies, Medina writes, are historical texts; when we read them we are
reading history.<o:p></o:p></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; "><o:p><font class="Apple-style-span" size="2"> </font></o:p></p>
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<div><font size="2" face="Tahoma">--</font></div>
<div><font size="2" face="Tahoma">Eden Medina</font></div>
<div><font size="2">Assistant Professor of Informatics</font></div>
<div><font size="2">Adjunct Assistant Professor of History</font></div>
<div><font size="2">School of Informatics and Computing</font></div>
<div><font size="2">Indiana University, Bloomington</font></div>
<div><font size="2"><a href="mailto:edenm@indiana.edu">edenm@indiana.edu</a></font></div>
<div><font size="2"><a href="http://www.edenmedina.com">www.edenmedina.com</a></font></div>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="2"> </font></div>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="2">Learn about "Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende's Chile" (MIT Press, 2011) @ <a href="http://www.cyberneticrevolutionaries.com/">www.cyberneticrevolutionaries.com</a> </font></div>
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