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The Anarchist in the Library: How the Clash Between Freedom and Control is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System
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Average Rating:  out of 12 Reviews
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Price: $26.00
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Sale: $8.50
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Manufacturer: Basic Books
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EAN (European Article Number): 9780465089840
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Hardcover
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Author: Siva Vaidhyanathan
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Publisher: Basic Books
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Edition: 1
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Dewey Decimal Number: 303.4833
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Publication Date: 2004-04-13
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Reading Level: 256
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Description: From Napster to Total Information Awareness to flash mobs, the debate over information technology in our lives has revolved around a single question: How closely do we want cyberspace to resemble the real world? Siva Vaidhyanathan enters this debate with a seminal insight: While we've been busy debating how to make cyberspace imitate the world, the world has been busy imitating cyberspace. More and more of our social, political, and religious activities are modeling themselves after the World Wide Web.Vaidhyanathan tells us the key information structure of our time, and the key import from cyberspace into the world, is the "peer-to-peer network." Peer-to-peer networks have always existed--but with the rise of electronic communication, they are suddenly coming into their own. And they are drawing the outlines of a battle for information that will determine much of the culture and politics of our century, affecting everything from society to terrorism, from religion to the latest social fads. The Anarchist in the Library is a radically original look at how this battle defines one of the major fault lines of twenty-first-century civilization.
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Customer Reviews
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Review Summary: Freedom vs Control |
Date: 2008-10-24 |
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Details: This is an excellent read for those seeking an idea of what the battle for the internet may be in the near future - freedom vs controlled. Rumors of governmental and business desires to control the internet are heard more and more. These rumors include a 'fairness' doctrine much like the proposed reintroduction of it for radio and TV.
Anarchy (or freedom) on the internet has created a tool of immense importance to a free society. The desires to control the internet as set forth in this book indicate desires to control the flow of information by certain business and government interests, and thus create another means to control the masses for economic or political exploitation.
The book provides an introductory discussion of what anarchy means and where is it derived.
The book also provides a glimpse of the struggle of certain businesses to control certain uses of the internet for their economic gain by pursuing in some cases those that download music or other copyrighted material. This is a continuation of the author's earlier work.
The book warns a controlled internet may lead to or sustain an increasingly police state type government where the masses are persecuted based on their on-line activity -- much like China is protrayed being in some news reports with help from some of the internet business heavy weights.
Steve Levy's "Crypto" would be an excellent additional reading since it covers the American government's (especially the NSA's input) actions regarding cryptography and the internet during the 1990s.
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Review Summary: good yet unclear ideas |
Date: 2007-09-01 |
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Details: The author brings up very interesting ideas, discussing how culture and technologies are inherently anarchistic, and how oligarchies are constantly trying to harness these for control & profit, which may end up damaging or destroying them in the process. The 'anything goes' trading of Napster wasn't good for artist and content produces, but the tied-down DRM world is even worse in the long run.
He definitely knows his material, but the writing just isn't that clear. He compares things to "Anarchistic Libertarianism" like I'm supposed to instantly know the ramifications of the term. I'd read a paragrah and realize I have no idea what he was trying to say.
There's a great argument to make here, I just don't think Siva Vaidhyanathan presents it very well. |
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Review Summary: Infostructure in geopardy? |
Date: 2006-03-01 |
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Details: This is a book is on, the most unexpected subjects: Information anarchy in utopia, Information anarchy in dystopia and Information utopia?
These insights are from an expert who visualizes the effects of hacking, cracking and whacking in the world in general. And how such a scenario creates chaos in libraries. See for instance, computer filters (p. 38), effect of total acces (121-122), and terrorism (118-120, 122).
Contextually, this books sounds as a sequel to the earlier title by the same author, i.e., "Copyrights and Copywrongs." In considering structurally as a sequel, I am not in anyways special. Because, The Chronicle of Higher Education, in 2004, said it precisely in the following article: "In the Copyright Wars, This Scholar Sides With the Anarchists." (see: http://chronicle.com/free/v51/i13/13a02901.htm)
Nevertheless, Anarchist in the Library adds value to the existing literature on safety, security, and emergency preparedness.
Interestingly, The Anarchist in the Library deals with clashes and the limits of freedom in a world that continues to converge - in electronic, media and digital domains.
The Anarchist in the Library is a good reading for policy makers to consider issues in public governance in a situation that is loaded with smart-internet, as well as, friendly-access environment. |
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Review Summary: Are The Libraries Safe Anymore For Decent Folks? |
Date: 2005-07-04 |
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Details: Anarchy is a governing system that eschews authority. Oligarchy governs from, through, and for authorities. These ideologies feed off each other dialectically; they are rapidly remaking our global information ecosystem: the increasing speed and amount of information and the basic paradox of the digital world onto the real world.
Libraries are never as placid as they appear. They are sources of controversy and conflict. After it was confirmed that some of the terrorists had used public computers in Virginia and Florida, the government decided they want access fo patron reading habits and Internet use. Thus, the USA Patriot Act came into existence.
The Patriot Act, signed by President Bush II, in October 2001, has turned into an intrusion in the privacy of library users and those who check out books. Anyone pretending to be FBI can check your account and no one will inform you.
The FBI is notorious for overstepping its bounds. This intrusion into patrons' privacy is against the Constitution. We are being denied our inalienable rights. The library is not just functionally important to communities all over the world, the doors should be open to everybody. Librarians are being forced to choose between their values, but they are supposed to support and protect the patrons. We are not to be intimidated by the choice of books we choose to read. I am using a diverse study among the nonfiction (simply because they are new), clearly not my choice of reading material, but folks on Amazon. com seem to prefer the newer books for their reviews.
As with Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, unclassified technical reports have disappeared from the Los Alamos National Lab web site. How is that possible? It never should have been put online in the first place. |
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Review Summary: Anarchy for thee, not for me. |
Date: 2005-04-04 |
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Details: While many academics do tend to "fog" their arguments I think this book by Professor Siva Vaidhyanathan of New York University is a fresh, provocative, and extremely readable discourse on the nature of freedom and control in a world awash with technology that is often over-hyped and under-analyzed. Prof. Vaidhyanathan is a fresh voice analyzing the extremely important issue of, in his words, the "availability and accessibility of the substance of expression and thus the possibility of public discussion and creativity" (185). As a veteran of the culture wars spawned by punk rock's initial social (and later in a watered-down form) commercial success, I have seen the reliance on empty sloganeering and naive calls for anarchy from punks who couldn't organize taking out the trash if they had all week. Prof. Vaidhyanathan rejects simplistic calls for decentralization and anarchy, and instead provides a rich and nuanced historical context for why we should return to what he calls "Civic Republicanism," a return to the idea of public trust and mutual dependency that many Americans have lost sight of in the rather simplistic way most debates have been framed in the battle over public control of information. One of the virtues of Prof. Vaidhyanathan's book is that he does not provide any easy answer or EFF manifestos, just a reliance on the basic responsibility of human beings to engage in meaningful dialogue about the Faustian bargains involved in new technologies. And in an age that promises unparalleled control and unparalleled, resistance, a call for a meaningful and participatory dialogue is a breath of fresh air. |
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