William Aspray Books

This book examines food in the United States in the age of the Internet. One major theme running through the book is business opportunities and failures, as well as the harms to consumers and traditional brick-and-mortar companies that occurred as entrepreneurs tried to take advantage of the Internet to create online companies related to food. The other major theme is the concept of trust online and different models used by different companies to make their web presence seem trustworthy. The book describes a number of major food companies, including AllRecipes, Betty Crocker, Cook's Illustrated, Epicurious, Groupon, OpenTable, and Yelp. The book draws on business history, food studies, and information studies for its approach.​

Focusing on the year 1920 in the United States, this microhistory explores the multifaceted roles of information in society. By examining traditional historical themes like farming, government bureaucracy, the Spanish flu pandemic, and Prohibition, it highlights how information influenced these areas. Additionally, it delves into information-rich sectors such as libraries, schools, financial services, and scientific research, providing a nuanced understanding of the era's informational landscape. This approach sheds light on the interconnectedness of various societal elements during a pivotal time.

Focusing on the National Science Foundation's initiatives, the book chronicles efforts to enhance diversity in computing education and workforce participation from 1980 to the present. It explores the NSF's early educational involvement and highlights key programs, including ADVANCE and initiatives aimed at increasing representation among women, underrepresented minorities, and individuals with disabilities. Additionally, it examines collaborations with organizations like ACM and Code.org to promote rigorous computing instruction in public schools, showcasing the ongoing commitment to broadening participation in the field.

Focusing on the evolution of political fact-checking, the book explores its role within the broader context of online scrutiny. It traces the historical presence of "fake facts" in America, detailing significant milestones from the rise of the public Internet in the 1990s to the onset of the Trump-Clinton presidential election campaigns. Through this examination, it highlights the ongoing challenges and implications of misinformation in the political landscape.

"In this book Nate Kelly argues that rising concentrations of wealth creates a politics that makes reducing economic inequality more difficult. Kelly convincingly demonstrates that the concentration of economic resources in a small group leads to a concentration of economic and political power that in turn creates a self-perpetuating plutocracy or an "inequality trap." As economic resources become concentrated, those who control them engage in a variety of political activities that seek to perpetuate their advantages. Among other things, the rich support a broad public campaign that convinces voters that policies to reduce inequality are unwise and not in the average voter's interest, notwithstanding the real economic impact. They also manipulate the formal division of our government into separate branches and a federal system to their advantage"

Formal approaches are those taken by government bodies through laws, court decisions and actions of government regulatory bodies. Informal approaches are those taken by individuals, non profit organizations, industries working at self-regulation, etc. Because the formal means are tied to a particular legal system, this kind of approach is nation-specific and the book focuses on the United States. But many of the things the authors have to say about US food policy and the interactions between formal and informal approaches would also be of interest to policymakers and food industry professionals in other countries. Coverage includes the regulation of food advertising on children's television and the internet, regulation of school lunch programs and the influence of Eleanor Roosevelt and Michelle Obama.

William Aspray provides the first broad and detailed account of von Neumann's many different contributions to computing.

This text examines in detail the issue of the underrepresentation of women, African Americans, American Indians, and Hispanics in the computing disciplines in the U. S. The work reviews the underlying causes, as well as the efforts of various nonprofit organizations to correct the situation, in order to both improve social equity and address the shortage of skilled workers in this area. Topics and features: presents a digest and historical overview of the relevant literature from a range of disciplines, including leading historical and social science sources; discusses the social and political factors that have affected the demographics of the workforce from the end of WWII to the present day; provides historical case studies on organizations that have sought to broaden participation in computing and the STEM disciplines; reviews the different approaches that have been applied to address underrepresentation, at the individual, system-wide, and pathway-focused level; profiles the colleges and universities that have been successful in opening up computer science or engineering to female students; describes the impact of individual change-agents as well as whole organizations.

This compact history traces the computer industry from 1950s mainframes, through establishment of standards beginning in 1965, to personal computing in the 1980s and the Internet's explosive growth since 1995. Martin Campbell- Kelly and Daniel Garcia-Swartz describe a steady trend toward miniaturization and explain its consequences.