In the spirit of that most noble directive from on high,
node your homework!, I thought I'd go one better and try
node your thesis. Hell, I'm going to node that bastard as it I write it, so below the contents page, with the rest still tightly bundled in among the grey matter, but coming in the days and weeks ahead.
Now this work going up on
E2 means, in a slight
inversion of usual academic practice, the scholarly puppy will essentially enter the
peer review stage even as its being hammered together, which means you, dear & wise
Everythingians, have a chance to muck about with the collected 1s & 0s (long before it ever gets into the hands of the dreaded
Thesis Committee). And so, given that, if you spot the odd
typo, question details about any of the
chronology, aren't sure you see
the point in some spots or just find me out & out
daft in places - well, you know I'm dying for whatever criticism you have.
In other words, in terms of wrong/rightness,
better you & better here than the cold, dusty halls of academe. So /msg or email me if you
differ on any point. Appreciative lollipops will go into the post for each of you. Which brings me to the last bit, which is to acknowledge the whole sick
EDC crew &
E2 gods who mystically keep this boat afloat & all the
demi-gods who keep the rigging straight, rails well-oiled, and cannons primed.
I also owe huge thanks to
baffo,
Pseudo_Intellectual,
Cletus the Foetus,
liveforever,
Gorgonzola,
taschenrechner,
Teiresias,
Noung, and especially
jetifi for commenting, clarifying or correcting all sorts of historical & technical matters.
Introduction
Part One : The Advent of Information
I : Big Iron and Lightning Lines - Babbage, Morse & Co. (1797- 1847)
II : Administrate & Mechanize: The Colonial Push (1847 - 1914)
III : Information Wars (1914 - 1945)
IV : Quantify, Command & Control (1945 -1980)
V : The Bleeding Edge (1980-2000)
Part Two : The Implications of Information
VI : Viruses, Memes and Mergers : the embedded threats of a Networked World
VII : Youth, Education & the Priorities of Digital Capital
VIII : The Information Poor, Globalized Labour and Dwindling Resources
IX: Freedom™ : Privacy Privatised, Security for Sale & Human Rights
X : Open Source, P2P & the History of the Decline and Fall of Copyright
Part Three : Emergent Qualities of Information
XI : The New Wireless and the return to Ether
XII : The Library of Babel : Invisible Colleges
XIII : Technological Dissent and the Physical Bounds
XIV : The Attention Economy : Testimony from Information Workers
XV : Undo History : Access Future
Acknowledgements
Chronology
Bibliography