Reviews

Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Can Teach Us About Digital Technology by Lizzie O'Shea

disastrousnetwork's review

hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

mwahya's review against another edition

informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

patioshipping's review

5.0

Brilliant, far reaching book about our history, our present and our future. Its kind of historical-soft-si-(non-)fi, if you get me.

aliceonpaper's review

slow-paced

3.0

katylang's review

5.0

Underlined and dog-eared so many pages! Really cool and persuasive stories and arguments for a digital commons and the future of technology. At first I thought "meh I'm not tech-oriented I don't know if I'll get into this" and then it hooked me! Accessible and thought-provoking.

whataboutzana's review

hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

darkshuffle's review

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

3.5

pigasos's review against another edition

informative inspiring reflective

3.25

steph_84's review

4.0

Holy moly the ambition of this book is staggering and Lizzie O’Shea is possibly a genius. There’s no tweaking around the edges here, this is full-blown revolution. It’s digital Marxism for a 21st century audience, but better in that Marx tended to make unsubstantiated claims willy-nilly whereas O’Shea’s arguments are structured and well-researched, but still very novel (at least for me).

Is it impolite to ask why all these revolutionary ideas are coming from someone who seemingly has no background in the tech industry? What have people in the tech field been doing for the last decade to be usurped by a lawyer?

My only criticism of this book is that it’s quite wordy, with long sentences that jam a lot in. It takes a bit of concentration and the style took me a while to adjust too. My mum refused to read it on the grounds that the subtitle is too long, and she’s an academic!

I still think it’s worth the effort.

mishnah's review

hopeful informative fast-paced

3.25

admirable effort and perhaps would have changed my life if i had found it earlier or in a different way of being. as it stands was compelling at times but ultimately did not strike as deeply as it thinks it does