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InfrastructuresSeries

This series delves into the hidden systems that underpin our world, from digital networks to physical structures. It explores how these often-overlooked frameworks shape our society, economy, and daily lives. Each volume uncovers the complexity and interconnectedness of critical infrastructures, offering readers a profound new perspective on the modern age.

Spam
A Vast Machine
Monitoring Movements in Development Aid
Assembling Policy
The container principle
Standards

Recommended Reading Order

  • Standards

    • 402 pages
    • 15 hours of reading
    2.5(2)Add rating

    An investigation into standards, the invisible infrastructures of our technical, moral, social, and physical worlds.

    Standards

  • The container principle

    • 394 pages
    • 14 hours of reading
    3.8(20)Add rating

    Klose explores a series of "container situations" in their historical, political, and cultural contexts. He examines the container as a time capsule, sometimes breaking loose and washing up onshore to display an inventory of artifacts of our culture. He explains the "Matryoshka principle," explores the history of land-water transport, and charts the three phases of container history. He examines the rise of logistics, the containerization of computing in the form of modularization and standardization, the architecture of container-like housing, and a range of artistic projects inspired by containers. Containerization, spreading from physical storage to organizational metaphors, Klose argues, signals a change in the fundamental order of thinking and things

    The container principle

  • Assembling Policy

    • 224 pages
    • 8 hours of reading
    4.7(3)Add rating

    An examination of how human beings are brought into the planning of complex infrastructure projects, through analysis of a controversial public transportation project.

    Assembling Policy

  • A Vast Machine

    • 552 pages
    • 20 hours of reading
    3.9(7)Add rating

    The science behind global warming, and its history: how scientists learned to understand the atmosphere, to measure it, to trace its past, and to model its future.

    A Vast Machine

  • Spam

    A Shadow History of the Internet

    • 296 pages
    • 11 hours of reading
    4.2(9)Add rating

    Exploring the phenomenon of spam, this book delves into its mechanisms and effects on online communities and the broader Internet landscape. It examines the evolution of spam, its various forms, and the ways it influences user experience and digital communication. Through detailed analysis, the book highlights the challenges spam presents and its implications for the future of online interactions.

    Spam

  • Raw Data Is an Oxymoron

    • 182 pages
    • 7 hours of reading
    3.9(58)Add rating

    Episodes in the history of data, from early modern math problems to today's inescapable dataveillance, that demonstrate the dependence of data on culture.

    Raw Data Is an Oxymoron

  • System

    • 330 pages
    • 12 hours of reading
    3.4(20)Add rating

    The role that system has played in the shaping and reshaping of modern knowledge, from Galileo and Newton to our own computational universe.

    System