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The Digital Revolution

A Short History of an Ideology

Gabriele Balbi author Bonnie McClellan-Broussard translator

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

Published:21st Dec '23

Should be back in stock very soon

The Digital Revolution cover

'A must-read to anyone interested in the digital world.' - Valérie Schafer, Center for Contemporary and Digital History, University of Luxembourg A concise history of the digital revolution and the lore, rhetoric, and debates that surround it. The Digital Revolution aims to tell a story, one of the most powerful ideologies of recent decades: that digitalization constitutes a revolution, a break with the past, a radical change for the human beings who are living through it. The book aims to investigate the origins of this idea, how it evolved, which other past revolutions consciously or unconsciously inspired it, which great stories it has conveyed over time, which of its key elements have changed and which ones have persisted and have been repeated in different historical periods. All these discussions, large or small, have settled and condensed into a series of media, advertising, corporate, political, and technical sources. Readers will be introduced to new, previously unpublished historical sources. The main aim of the book is to deconstruct what looks like a “natural” and incontestable idea and to help rethink digital societies today.

Offers timely insight into a timeless preoccupation with the digital age. * Benjamin Peters, Hazel Rogers Associate Professor of Media Studies and affiliated faculty Cyber Studies, University of Tulsa *
Gabriele Balbi delves into a notion whose history, actors and developments shape our digital imaginaries and practices, as well as our relationship with technology, media and innovation. A must-read to anyone interested in the digital world. * Valérie Schafer, Center for Contemporary and Digital History, University of Luxembourg *
This short book is both topical and timely. * Jane Winters, Professor of Digital Humanities, School of Advanced Study, University of London *
This brief, easy read of a book argues that the transition from an analog to a digital world is not simply a matter of technology but involves a shift in time, space, and social relations portending the end of history, geography, even politics. * Choice *

ISBN: 9780198875970

Dimensions: 205mm x 140mm x 14mm

Weight: 306g

176 pages