The control revolution: Technological and economic origins of the information society

The control revolution: Technological and economic origins of the information society

5sumal of Economic Behavior and Organization 9 (1988) 203-211. North-Holland d Economic Cambridge, In the introduction to The Contra of ‘societal tr...

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5sumal of Economic Behavior and Organization 9 (1988) 203-211. North-Holland

d Economic Cambridge,

In the introduction to The Contra of ‘societal transformationc identifi

niger includes a list dozens of phrases

‘information smiety’, ‘information age’, and (to include a technology) ‘gene age’. To read these phrases one after anot that they are characterizations not so much of social and economic conditions but rather of our society’s changing self-image. In serve as the basis for a fascinating essay on scholarly and to growth in stwar America. such an essay. too has a revolu h he characterizes as the ‘control revolution’. is comprehensive list shows at he is aware of his predecessors; it also promises that he will taking a more studied, the following chapters fulfill ch earlier than most of the owing need for control of production, distribution, and consumption during the industrialization of America in the nrn and early twentieth centuries. The Control Revolution is itself a of control, as the author manages to organize and present an unt of detailed evidence. combination of compelling detail analysis put Tke Contr volution in the tradition of Lewis umford’s early works, The Control revolution is divided into t ca’s ‘crisis of control’ and its gradual

Book reviews

205

n collision of 1

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onal actor dressed a of the National

heroic age of American advertising, when companies iearned the importance of brand names and bureaucratic data processing a&o began in the last teen& cmtury with such devices as the modern typecker, and a-f course the punch-card tabulator, invented th for the census of 1890. The fact that Holler&h founded indicates the importance of the a company that would in 1924 become line of development from these man’s invention. It also shows the conti earlier control technol r’s careful analysis leads In these sections of the reader through a wea

Book mdews

206

importance of the theory of entropy and of the evolution of systems for general problems are conclusion (that the pr

itself, then what is s question, but not in terms

Rewlution shows that such terms

decades of compute the last century and more of industri l

University of

Carolina, Ch

This excellent volume provides the published results of a centennial