Over the past few years, there have been a number of fantastic new books in the realm of technology and politics. As I prepare to write another of my own, I’ve been doing some deep reading—and wanted to pass on my recommendations. This is by no means a comprehensive list (and I’ve left off those I’ve read but cannot in good conscience recommend), but rather a selection of what I think you should read if you’re looking to get up to date and some of the latest thinking.
- Free Speech Wars, edited by Charlotte Lydia Riley, is a solid collection of essays on free speech debates both old and new, offline and on. I found some essays more compelling than others, but taken as a whole, it’s a good introduction to a fraught topic.
- The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami. Okay, this one’s fiction, but it presents a dystopian potential future in which technology can determine our likelihood of committing crimes. I love Lalami’s books, and this one’s no exception.
- Free Speech by Jacob Mchangama. The subtitle of this book is “A Global History From Socrates to Social Media,” which…well, it does what it says on the tin, and very well at that. I had the pleasure of interviewing Jacob recently, and he’s really a brilliant thinker. His next book, with the excellent Jeff Kosseff, is entitled The Future of Free Speech: Reversing the Global Decline of Democracy’s Most Essential Freedom, and I’m looking forward to receiving my pre-ordered copy.
- Technocolonialism: When Technology for Good is Harmful by Mirca Madianou. You can read my full review of this one in the International Journal of Communication.
And speaking of books that haven’t arrived in the mail yet, my colleagues Rainey Reitman and Cindy Cohn both have new books out. Rainey’s book, Transaction Denied: Big Finance’s Power to Punish Speech, is on a subject near and dear to my heart and may well be the first full-length book on the subject. You may have seen Cindy talking about her book, Privacy’s Defender, on the Daily Show. I’ve gotten to work with Cindy for the past 12 years, but I’m still looking forward to reading it to learn more about her long history fighting the good fight for privacy. You can buy her book directly from EFF‘s website, which also lists all of her upcoming talks.