This is my summary of the book “Who are we — and should it matter in the 21st century”, by Gary Younge, about identity and nationalism in a globalised world. This time, instead of following the structure of the book, I’m going to do something similar to what Josh Kaufman does with his summaries: extract [...]
Archives for Book summaries
Book summary: Freedom from Command & Control (II)
This is the second half of my summary of “Freedom from Command & Control”, by John Seddon. See the first part of the summary on this blog. This second part will cover chapters five to nine. As I said, the book also has an epilogue (“Revisiting Taylorism”) and an addendum (“The better way to improve [...]
Book summary: Freedom from Command & Control (I)
This is the first part of my summary of “Freedom from Command & Control” by John Seddon. EDIT: See also the second half of the summary. He is also the author of “The Case Against ISO9000″ and “I Want You To Cheat”. I have to admit FfC&C was a tad disappointing because I thought it [...]
Book summary: Cognitive Surplus (III)
This is the last part of my summary of “Cognitive Surplus“, by Clay Shirky. It will cover the last chapter, “Looking for the Mouse”. You can read parts one and two in this blog. Looking for the mouse Transforming free time into cognitive surplus is not just about social tools. We need motive and opportunity, [...]
Book summary: Cognitive Surplus (II)
This is the second part of my summary of “Cognitive Surplus“, by Clay Shirky. It will cover chapters “Culture” and “Personal, Communal, Public, Civic”. EDIT: You can read parts one and three in this blog. Culture Day care fines story on p.131. Knowledge is the most combinable thing we have, but taking advantage of it [...]
Book summary: Cognitive Surplus (I)
This is the first part of my summary of “Cognitive Surplus“, by Clay Shirky. It will cover chapters “Gin, TV and Cognitive Surplus”, “Means”, “Motive” and “Opportunity”. EDIT: You can read parts two and three in this blog. 1. Gin, TV and Cognitive Surplus The Gin craze in early 1700 in England didn’t stop because of [...]
Book summary: Technopoly (IV)
This is the fourth (and last) part of my summary of “Technopoly” by Neil Postman. It covers the two final chapters, “The Great Symbol Drain” and “The Loving Resistance Fighter”. You can see parts one, two and three in this blog. The Great Symbol Drain Examples of “blasphemous” ads in p. 164-165. It’s not blasphemy [...]
Book summary: Technopoly (III)
This is the third part of my summary of “Technopoly” by Neil Postman. You can read parts one and two on this blog. This part covers chapters “The Ideology of Machines: Medical Technology”, “The Ideology of Machines: Computer Technology”, “Invisible Technologies” and “Scientism”. EDIT: see parts one, two and four on this blog. The Ideology of [...]
Book summary: Technopoly (II)
This is the second part of my summary of “Technopoly” by Neil Postman (see the first one on this blog). It covers chapters “From Technocracy to Technopoly”, “The Improbable World” and “The Broken Defenses”. EDIT: see parts one, three and four on this blog. From Techocracy to Technopoly By the end of the 18th century, technocracy [...]
Book summary: Technopoly (I)
This is the first part of my summary of the book “Technopoly: the Surrender of Culture to Technology“, by Neil Postman. Especially after reading this book, I feel forced to say (and insist on) that this is just my take on this book: it’s subjective and incomplete (parts that I found less interesting, agreed less [...]
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