The Control Revolution: How the Internet is Putting Individuals in Charge and Changing the World We Know - Hardcover

Shapiro, Andrew; Shapiro, Andrew L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1891620193 ISBN 13: 9781891620195

Publisher: PublicAffairs, 1999

Synopsis

Shows how the Internet has enabled individuals to take power from institutions, and examines the benefits and drawbacks of these changes

About this title

About the Author

Andrew L. Shapiro, a writer and lawyer, is director of the Aspen Institute Internet Policy Project and the First Amendment Fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. He has recently been a lecturer at Columbia Law School, a resident fellow at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and a fellow at The Century Foundation. A contributing editor at The Nation, Shapiro has also written for publications including Wired, New York, The New Republic, and The New York Times. This is his second book.

From the Back Cover

"A reservoir of civic reason in our tumultuous age...Shapiro is a de Tocqueville of the information society." David Shenk, author of Data Smog: Surviving the Information Glut

"Finally, a book that can help even a novice like me understand what the Internet revolution is all about. Kudos to Andrew Shapiro!" Laurence A. Tisch, former Chairman and CEO of CBS

"This is an extraordinarily powerful and mature story of the hopeful side of the Internet's revolution. Rich with insight, and surprisingly new conclusions, Shapiro's book is the best 'second-generation' thought on the questions the Net will raise. His account foreshadows the challenges for a liberal democracy in the networked future, and his analysis provides pragmatic and realistic responses for citizens today. Beautifully written, and tightly argued, the book is certain to become a classic." Lawrence Lessig, Berkman Professor, Harvard Law School

"Lucid and provocative from page one, The Control Revolution offers a rare perspective on the high-tech frontier: an enthusiast's understanding of the digital world, tempered by a pragmatist's sense of the limitations of the new media. Shapiro gives us a powerful glimpse of what works in cyberspace--and how to fix what doesn't. The Control Revolution is bound to shape the terms of cyber-debate for years to come." Steven Johnson, editor of Feed Magazine and author of Interface Culture

"While I may be more hyperbolic in my optimism than Shapiro, The Control Revolution is a lean and well-founded argument for a belief we share, namely that electronic networks are returning to individual human beings much of the authority we have lost to institutions during the Industrial Period. The Powers that Be are shortly to become the Powers that Were." John Perry Barlow, Cognitive Dissident, Co-Founder & Vice Chairman, Electronic Frontier Foundation

"Shapiro presents a compelling explanation of why we love the Internet-the control and access it gives us-while also reminding us of the obligations this new power brings us to preserve what is good about America. It's important for each of us to read The Control Revolution, and to take up his call for a balance between personal and public interest." Zoe Baird, President, The Markle Foundation

A thoughtful and balanced treatment of the Internet.... Shapiro celebrates the enhancement of individual freedoms the Internet enables, while pointedly diagnosing its dangers to our collective well-being." Mitchell Kapor, founder Lotus Development Corporation, co-founder Electronic Frontier Foundation

Reviews

Noting that the Internet is reshaping society and giving the individual unprecedented power, Shapiro, a Nation contributing editor, lawyer and director of the Aspen Institute Internet Policy Project, offers a sophisticated look at the Net and the ramifications of its current and potential uses. When the first graphical browsers came on the scene and made the Web accessible to anyone with a PC, optimists trumpeted the arrival of an era in which power would flow back to individuals after years of residing with corporations and institutions. Five years later, Shapiro sees that libertarian promise coming to fruition in many ways: day traders are bypassing stockbrokers; persons living under repressive regimes are using the Web to circumvent the Big Lie of state-controlled media; musicians and wordsmiths are self-publishing on the Web. Shapiro celebrates these freedoms, but his book is much more than a breathless booster's vision of digital utopia. Governments and corporations, he notes, are already striking back, and he documents some of the most egregious examples of censorship and attempts by companies to get a choke hold on Net technologies. And, most honestly, he addresses how too much digital autonomy might be harmful to civil society, in his critiques of "The Drudge Factor" (unaccountable pseudojournalism), "friction-free capitalism" (digital commerce freed from the restraints of taxation and regulation) and "push-button politics" (direct, electronic voting by citizens on matters currently decided by elected officials or appointed professionals). With scrupulous documentation and a knowledgeable but unpatronizing tone, Shapiro delivers a penetrating analysis of both the promise and peril of the digital future. (June)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: PublicAffairs
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1891620193
• ISBN 13: 9781891620195
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304