Book Reviews, (Summer 2021)
These reviews are now available to read through Project Muse and in the printed Journal, Volume 56 No. 2.
Archival Returns: Central Australia and Beyond, edited by Linda Barwick, Jennifer Green, and Petronella Vaarzon-Morel
Reviewed by Monica Galassi
"Written by a diverse group of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal community members, knowledge holders, artists and researchers, the book Archival Returns: Central Australia and Beyond presents examples of projects, negotiations, and technology used by and with Aboriginal communities from Central Austra"
Architects of Memory: Information and Rhetoric in a Networked Archival Age by Nathan R. Johnson
Reviewed by James Hodges
"Nathan R. Johnson’s Architects of Memory: Information and Rhetoric in a Networked Archival Age is a relatively brief and eminently readable treatise on the intertwined histories of librarianship, information science, and information technology."
Lie Machines: How to Save Democracy from Troll Armies, Deceitful Robots, Junk News Operations, and Political Operatives, by Philip N. Howard
Reviewed by Claudia Flores-Saviaga
"In Lie Machines: How to Save Democracy from Troll Armies, Deceitful Robots, Junk News Operations, and Political Operatives, Oxford University professor Philip Howard takes us on a journey through the history of the production of “lie machines,” supported by the latest scientific research in the field of disinformation studies."
The Known Citizen: A History of Privacy in Modern America by Sarah E. Igo
Reviewed by Andrea Ringer
"Sarah Igo’s sweeping history of privacy in The Known Citizen: A History of Privacy in Modern America tells the story of how US citizens have conceptualized and negotiated ideas of privacy up to the current moment, when being unknown seems like an impossibility."
The Creativity Code: Art and Innovation in the Age of AI by Marcus Du Sautoy
Reviewed by Jina Hong
"Marcus Du Sautoy’s latest offering, The Creativity Code: Art and Innovation in the Age of AI, succeeds in its attempt to explain from an analytical, mathematical perspective for the layperson, and provides readers with a personal-qua-scientific narrative about how the march of mathematics and marvel of thinking machines are closely interwoven with historical and socio-technical elements."
The Information Manifold: Why Computers Can’t Solve Algorithmic Bias and Fake News by Antonio Badia
Reviewed by Christiana Varda
"As we traverse this “information age” characterized by immediate access to abundant information, Antonio Badia invites us to pause and consider what counts as information. His book, The Information Manifold: Why Computers Can’t Solve Algorithmic Bias and Fake News, examines how we define information by considering three different perspectives (syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic) that color not only how we understand information, but also how we approach and manage it online on a daily basis, in the context of issues such as algorithmic bias and misinformation."
