Philip Zumwalt is an accomplished musician, poet, and idealist-a dreamer. Fresh out of college in 1940, he takes a job as a music teacher in a small, rural Illinois town. His plan is to teach for a few years hoping to save enough money to finance his dreams: go to Chicago to become a professional musician and get his pilot's license. These dreams dominate his thoughts until one summer night when he meets Elinor Robinson.Philip and Elinor's forbidden romance-and the specter of war h...

How social networks, the personalized Internet, and always-on mobile connectivity are transforming—and expanding—social life.Daily life is connected life, its rhythms driven by endless email pings and responses, the chimes and beeps of continually arriving text messages, tweets and retweets, Facebook updates, pictures and videos to post and discuss. Our perpetual connectedness gives us endless opportunities to be part of the give-and-take of networking.Some...

The Yearbook of Transnational History is dedicated to disseminating pioneering research in the field of transnational history. This third volume is dedicated to the transnational turn in urban history. It brings together articles that investigate the transnational and transatlantic exchanges of ideas and concepts for urban planning, architecture, and technology that served to modernize cities across East and Central Europe and the United States. This collection includes studies about regio...

Social media penetrate our lives: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and many other platforms define daily habits of communication and creative production. This book studies the rise of social media, providing both a historical and a critical analysis of the emergence of major platforms in the context of a rapidly changing ecosystem of connective media. Author Jose van Dijck offers an analytical prism that can be used to view techno-cultural as well as socio-economic aspects of this transformation...

In this "intriguing, insightful and extremely educational" novel, the world's most famous hacker teaches you easy cloaking and counter-measures for citizens and consumers in the age of Big Brother and Big Data (Frank W. Abagnale).Kevin Mitnick was the most elusive computer break-in artist in history. He accessed computers and networks at the world's biggest companies -- and no matter how fast the authorities were, Mitnick was faster, sprinting through phone switche...

In 2009, a group of digital technology experts at the Citizen Lab uncovered an espionage network affecting more than 100 countries and targeting ministries of foreign affairs, embassies, international organizations, and media outlets. The investigation was but one example of a contest for the future of cyberspace that was becoming more intense with each passing year. Drawing on the first-hand experiences of the Citizen Lab, Ronald Deibert examines the multiplying forms of control hidden de...

Spreadable Media maps fundamental changes taking place in our contemporary media environment, a space where corporations no longer tightly control media distribution and many of us are directly involved in the circulation of content. It contrasts “stickiness”—aggregating attention in centralized places—with “spreadability”—dispersing content widely through both formal and informal networks,some approved, many unauthorized. Stickiness has been the measure of success in the broadcas...

SELECTED AS A 2008 BEST BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE ECONOMISTThe Net Generation Has Arrived.Are you ready for it?Chances are you know a person between the ages of 11 and 30. You've seen them doing five things at once: texting friends, downloading music, uploading videos, watching a movie on a two-inch screen, and doing who-knows-what on Facebook or MySpace. They're the first generation to have literally grown up digital--and the...

In the beginning, the World Wide Web was exciting and open to the point of anarchy, a vast and intimidating repository of unindexed confusion. Into this creative chaos came Google with its dazzling mission—"To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible"—and its much-quoted motto, "Don’t be evil." In this provocative book, Siva Vaidhyanathan examines the ways we have used and embraced Google—and the growing resistance to its expansion across the globe. He exposes th...

Caveat venditor-let the seller bewareWhile marketers look for more ways to get personal with customers, including new tricks with big data,” customers are about to get personal in their own ways, with their own tools. Soon consumers will be able to: Control the flow and use of personal data Build their own loyalty programs Dictate their own terms of service Tell whole markets what they want, how they want it, where and when they sh...

“An insightful guide to the forces shaping our economy” that explores the far-ranging implications of the shift to crowd-based capitalism—with case studies on Uber, Airbnb, and others (Hal Varian, Chief Economist at Google)Sharing isn’t new. Giving someone a ride, having a guest in your spare room, running errands for someone, participating in a supper club—these are not revolutionary concepts. What is new, in the “sharing economy,” is that you are not helping a fr...

“My favorite book of the year.”—Doug McMillon, CEO, Wal-Mart StoresHarvard Business School Professor of Strategy Bharat Anand presents an incisive new approach to digital transformation that favors fostering connectivity over focusing exclusively on content.NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BLOOMBERGCompanies everywhere face two major challenges today: getting noticed and getting paid. To confront ...