Five Innovations That Changed Human History
Robin Derricourt Cambridge Univ. Press (2024)
Of all the human innovations that changed history, five captured the attention of historian Robin Derricourt: the taming of fire; the domestication of horses and their use for wheeled transportation; the creation of writing systems; the development of the printing press; and the invention of wireless communication. These innovations, he skilfully argues, stand out because “they separate in both time and community those who had the new skill or technology” from those who lacked it.
Waiting for Robots
Antonio A. Casilli Univ. Chicago Press (2025)
US founding father Thomas Jefferson used dumbwaiters — small lifts that carry meals — during his extravagant dinners. There seemed to be no human intervention, but the lifts were operated by enslaved basement staff. As sociologist Antonio Casilli acutely observes, today too, artificial-intelligence systems are made to seem automated, often by overlooked and underpaid workers. His thought-provoking survey of robots highlights “the presence of inconspicuous labour in AI solutions”, hence its blunt subtitle, the Hired Hands of Automation.
From Small Talk to Microaggression
Michael Lempert Univ. Chicago Press (2024)
As a doctoral student switching from Buddhist studies to social sciences, Michael Lempert pored over an interaction he had filmed of two Tibetan Buddhist monks “wrangling in speech and gesture” over philosophical points. He studied the minute-long video for nearly four months, sometimes muting the sound or watching it in fast forward. In his book, he examines the history of interaction from sociological, anthropological and linguistic perspectives across many subjects and scales — from small talk to microaggression.
How We Sold Our Future
Jens Beckert Polity (2024)
