Imaginary Futures: From Thinking Machines to the Global VillageWinner of the MEA's 2008 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology.'A compelling, authoritative, and painstakingly documented narrative, Imaginary Futures traces the emergence of the computer era in the context of desperately competing ideologies, economics, and empires. This is a work of passionate and persuasive scholarship by a contemporary social theorist at the top of his game.'Douglas Rushkoff, author, Coercion, Media Virus, Get Back in the Box.'Imaginary Futures gives insight into how the dominant utopias of today were shaped in the time of the Cold War and served the ideological needs of the elites. While the Cold War West had a much better present, it was the Soviet East which had a vision of the future. The invention of a Western utopia became an important factor in the struggle for global power.'Boris Kagarlitsky, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Comparative Political Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences -- The future is now--Richard Barbrook argues that, at the height of the Cold War, the Americans invented a truly revolutionary tool: the Internet. Yet, for all of its libertarian potential, hi-tech science soon became a tool of geopolitical dominance. The rest of the world was expected to follow America's path into the networked future. Today, we're still told that the Net is creating the information society. Barbrook shows how we can reclaim its revolutionary purpose: how the DIY ethic of the internet can help people shape information technologies in their own interest and reinvent their own, improved visions of the future. |
Contents
THE AMERICAN CENTURY 13 | 6 |
Robbie the Robot and Altaira from the 1956 film | 20 |
COLD WAR COMPUTING | 31 |
Copyright | |
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Imaginary Futures: From Thinking Machines to the Global Village Richard Barbrook No preview available - 2007 |
Imaginary Futures: From Thinking Machines to the Global Village Richard Barbrook No preview available - 2007 |
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academic administration American empire artificial intelligence became become Bell commission Brzezinski Burnham capitalism capitalist CENIS Cold War game Cold War Left Communist cooperative creativity corporate created cultural cybernetic cybernetic communism decades dotcom economic electronic elite enemy European factory Fordism geopolitical gift economy global village grand narrative guerrilla hegemony hi-tech human ideological imaginary future imperial industrial information society intellectual invented Kennedy knowledge class labour laissez-faire liberalism Left's Lenin liberalism Licklider machines mainframes Maoist Marx Marxism McLuhanism McLuhanist military modernisation modernity nation nuclear numbers organisation Party pavilion political post-industrial production programme prophecy realised remix Revolution revolutionary Richard Barbrook Russian scientists Social Democrats socialist soft power South stage of growth Stalinism Stalinist strategy struggle superpower technologies television Tet Offensive theory totalitarian transformed Trotskyist Understanding Media Unisphere utopia vanguard victory Vietnam Vietnamese W.W. Rostow Wiener York World's Fair