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PODCAST

New Books in Technology

New Books Network

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox:

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All Episodes

39:28

David King Dunaway, "A Four-Eyed World: How Glasses...

New Books in Technology ·

2026/02/19

Eyeglasses have become so commonplace we hardly think about them—unless we can’t find them. Yet glasses have been controversial throughout history. Roger Bacon pioneered using lenses to see and then spent a decade in a medieval prison for advocating that he could fix" God’s creations by improving our eyesight. Even today, people take off their glasses before having their picture taken, despite how necessary they are.A Four-Eyed World: How Glasses Changed the Way We See (Bloomsbury, 2026) is the

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48:16

W. Patrick McCray, "README: A Bookish History of...

New Books in Technology ·

2026/02/19

In README: A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines (MIT Press, 2025), historian Dr. Patrick McCray argues that in order for computers to become ubiquitous, people first had to become interested in them, learn about them, and take the machines seriously. A powerful catalyst for this transformation was, ironically, one of the oldest information technologies we have: books. The author uses a carefully chosen selection of books, some iconic and others obscure, to

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58:49

Ted Striphas, "Algorithmic Culture Before the...

New Books in Technology ·

2026/02/18

In this episode, Ted Striphas, Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera and Alex Rivera Cartagena discuss Algorithmic Culture Before the Internet(Columbia University Press 2023), considering how some pre-digital human systems functioned through repetitive structures and automated processes that have similarities to electronic algorithms. They discuss how cognition has become digitized, dispersed across algorithmic and biological systems, and how digital tools attempt to overtake lived experiences and knowledges

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44:43

Yi-Ling Liu, "The Wall Dancers: Searching for Freedom...

New Books in Technology ·

2026/02/12

Not too long ago, in the 2000s and 2010s, many felt that the internet–even one behind the Great Firewall–would bring about a more open China. As President Bill Clinton famously quipped in 2000, Beijing trying to control the internet would be like “trying to nail jello to the wall.”Things don’t look quite so certain now. China’s internet is now more controlled than it was a decade ago, with platforms, content creators, and tech companies now firmly guided by rules and signals from Beijing. Yi-Ling

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38:35

Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley et al. eds., "Routledge Handbook...

New Books in Technology ·

2026/02/12

Studying Chinese media has never been a stable intellectual enterprise. As Professor Yuezhi Zhao once observed, it often resembles aiming at a target that appears clear from a distance but becomes elusive on closer inspection. Over the past decade, that target has grown even more fragmented and mobile. Media systems across the Chinese-speaking world—including the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, and transnational Chinese communities—have been reshaped by rapid

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54:30

Tom Bolton, "Atomic Albion: Journeys Around Britain’s...

New Books in Technology ·

2026/02/11

The United Kingdom has sixteen nuclear power stations. Most go under the radar, but their presence is enormous, both physically and culturally. They divide opinion like nothing else. Are they relics of a past era, or a crucial part of our futures? Are they cathedrals of science or temples of doom?Atomic Albion: Journeys Around Britain’s Nuclear Power Stations (Strange Attractor, 2025) by Dr. Tom Bolton is a journey around Britain’s nuclear power stations and the country itself. From the Essex

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58:03

Daniela Stockmann and Ting Luo, "Governing Digital...

New Books in Technology ·

2026/02/11

China's approach to digital governance has gained global influence, often evoking Orwellian 'Big Brother' comparisons. Governing Digital China (Cambridge UP, 2025) challenges this perception, arguing that China's approach is radically different in practice. This book explores the logic of popular corporatism, highlighting the bottom-up influences of China's largest platform firms and its citizens. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and nationally representative surveys, the authors track governance of

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38:59

Jon R. Lindsay "Age of Deception: Cybersecurity as...

New Books in Technology ·

2026/02/07

At the heart of cybersecurity lies a paradox: Cooperation makes conflict possible. In Age of Deception (Cornell University Press 2025), Jon R. Lindsay shows that widespread trust in cyberspace enables espionage and subversion. While such acts of secret statecraft have long been part of global politics, digital systems have dramatically expanded their scope and scale. Yet success in secret statecraft hinges less on sophisticated technology than on political context.To make sense of this, Lindsay

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68:37

Tom Griffiths, "The Laws of Thought: The Quest for a...

New Books in Technology ·

2026/02/04

The Laws of Thought: The Quest for a Mathematical Theory of the Mind (Henry Holt and Co., 2026) is an exploration of the quest to use mathematics to describe the ways we think, from its origins three hundred years ago to the ideas behind modern AI systems and the ways in which they still differ from human mindsEveryone has a basic understanding of how the physical world works. We learn about physics and chemistry in school, letting us explain the world around us in terms of concepts like force,

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73:39

Giuseppe Longo and Adam Nocek, "The Organism Is a...

New Books in Technology ·

2026/01/21

A bold reimagining of life that bridges science, philosophy, cybernetics, and the complexities of biological existenceThe Organism Is a Theory: Giuseppe Longo on Biology, Mathematics, and AI (Giuseppe Longo and Adam Nocek, 2026) is an intriguing synthesis of decades of interdisciplinary research by eminent mathematician and biological scientist Giuseppe Longo. A unique collaboration between Longo and philosopher of technology Adam Nocek, the volume confronts foundational issues in the history of

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40:31

Robert Dorschel, "The Social Codes of Tech Workers:...

New Books in Technology ·

2026/01/20

Who are the people staffing the digital economy? In The Social Codes of Tech Workers: Class Identity in Digital Capitalism (MIT Press, 2025) Robert Dorschel an Assistant Professor in Digital Sociology at the University of Cambridge, explores an occupation that has emerged as central to modern economies and societies. Drawing on an extensive range of interview fieldwork, the book offers a compelling picture of the working lives, along with the social and cultural interests of these workers, giving

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49:02

Emily Hund, "The Influencer Industry: The Quest for...

New Books in Technology ·

2026/01/19

Before there were Instagram likes, Twitter hashtags, or TikTok trends, there were bloggers who seemed to have the passion and authenticity that traditional media lacked. The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media (Princeton UP, 2023) tells the story of how early digital creators scrambling for work amid the Great Recession gave rise to the multibillion-dollar industry that has fundamentally reshaped culture, the flow of information, and the way we relate to ourselves and

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20:48

Aaron Bateman. "Weapons in Space: Technology,...

New Books in Technology ·

2026/01/06

A new and provocative take on the formerly classified history of accelerating superpower military competition in space in the late Cold War and beyond.In March 1983, President Ronald Reagan shocked the world when he announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively known as “Star Wars,” a space-based missile defense program aimed at protecting the US from nuclear attack. In Weapons in Space, Aaron Bateman draws on recently declassified American, European, and Soviet documents to provide

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42:56

Florentine Koppenborg, "Japan's Nuclear Disaster and...

New Books in Technology ·

2026/01/05

Florentine Koppenborg’s Japan’s Nuclear Disaster and the Politics of Safety Governance (Cornell UP, 2023) begins with the understated observation that the triple disaster of March 2011 “exposed severe deficiencies in Japan’s nuclear safety governance.” This is the starting point for the rather curious story of the regulatory reforms taken up in the wake of the Fukushima disaster and how they created a new system with a strong independent nuclear safety regulator that has refused to back down even as

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30:20

Donna J. Drucker, "Fertility Technology" (MIT Press,...

New Books in Technology ·

2025/12/29

A concise overview of fertility technology—its history, practical applications, and ethical and social implications around the world. In the late 1850s, a physician in New York City used a syringe and glass tube to inject half a drop of sperm into a woman’s uterus, marking the first recorded instance of artificial insemination. From that day forward, doctors and scientists have turned to technology in ever more innovative ways to facilitate conception. Fertility Technology (MIT Press, 2023) surveys

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38:17

Jeremy Black, "A History of Artillery" (Rowman &...

New Books in Technology ·

2025/12/29

Jeremy Black's book A History of Artillery (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023) traces the development of artillery through the ages, providing a thorough study of these weapons. From its earliest recorded use in battle over a millennium ago, up to the recent Gulf War, Balkan, and Afghanistan conflicts, artillery has often been the deciding factor in battle. Black shows that artillery sits within the general history of a war as a means that varied greatly between armies and navies, and also across

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41:20

Luis Felipe Murillo, "Common Circuits: Hacking...

New Books in Technology ·

2025/12/17

A digital world in relentless movement—from artificial intelligence to ubiquitous computing—has been captured and reinvented as a monoculture by Silicon Valley "big tech" and venture capital firms. Yet very little is discussed in the public sphere about existing alternatives. Based on long-term field research across San Francisco, Tokyo, and Shenzhen, Common Circuits: Hacking Alternative Technological Futures (Stanford UP, 2025) explores a transnational network of hacker spaces that stand as potent,

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20:31

Chaim Gingold, "Building SimCity: How to Put the...

New Books in Technology ·

2025/12/15

Building SimCity explores the history of computer simulation by chronicling one of the most influential simulation games ever made: SimCity. As author Chaim Gingold explains, Will Wright, the visionary designer behind the urban planning game, created SimCity in part to learn about cities, appropriating ideas from traditions in which computers are used as tools for modeling and thinking about the world as a complex system. As such, SimCity is a microcosm of the histories and cultures of computer

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102:06

Thomas Haigh on the History of “AI” as a Brand

New Books in Technology ·

2025/12/08

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Thomas Haigh, Professor and Chair of History and affiliate of the Department of Computer Science at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, about his forthcoming book on the history of artificial intelligence. The book, which has had the working title _Artificial Intelligence: The History of a Brand_ with the final title to be determined, examines how and why historical actors have decided to apply the term “artificial intelligence” to a variety of disparate

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42:40

Reading the Bible with AI?: A Conversation with John...

New Books in Technology ·

2025/12/03

Rebind combines reading with AI-chat to deepen learning and simulate the experience of conversing with some of the greatest scholars and thinkers. With Rebind, you can read A Tale of Two Cities with Margaret Atwood, Huck Finn with Marlon James, and Candide with Salman Rushdie. John and his team have recently launched the Rebind Study Bible, an interactive way to read, listen, and interpret the Bible with insight from scholars. As we head further into a world augmented by AI tools, Rebind is on the

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254 results

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