San Antonio College Library

In the middle of the last century, Norbert Wiener--ex-child prodigy and brilliant MIT mathematician--founded the science of cybernetics, igniting the information-age explosion of computers, automation, and global telecommunications. Wiener was the first to articulate the modern notion of "feedback," and his ideas informed the work of computer pioneer John von Neumann, information theorist Claude Shannon, and anthropologists Gregory Bateson and Margaret...

"A loose coalition of groups - including religious conservatives, disability rights advocates, and environmental activists - has emerged to oppose the use of genetics to enhance human beings. And with the appointment of conservative philosopher Leon Kass (an opponent of invitro fertilization, stem cell research, and life extension) to head the President's Council on Bioethics, and with the recent high-profile writings by authors like Francis Fukuyama...

This is the first cross-over book into the history of science written by an historian of economics. It shows how 'history of technology' can be integrated with the history of economic ideas. The analysis combines Cold War history with the history of postwar economics in America and later elsewhere, revealing that the Pax Americana had much to do with abstruse and formal doctrines such as linear programming and game theory. It links the literature...

"Deeply insightful and significant investigation of how the science and rhetoric of cybernetics have reshaped the boundaries of human identity." Village Voice.