Book
If then : how the Simulmatics Corporation invented the future
Record details
- ISBN: 1631496107 :
- ISBN: 9781631496103 :
-
Physical Description:
xii, 415 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
print - Edition: First edition.
- Publisher: New York, NY : Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W.W. Norton & Comapny, [2020]
Content descriptions
| Bibliography, etc. Note: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 335-390) and index. |
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Simulmatics Corporation. Data mining |
Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at Town of Hanover Libraries.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Holds
0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Howe Library | 006.312 LEP | 31254003674963 | Lower level | Available | - |
Summary:
"A brilliant, revelatory account of the Cold War origins of the data-mad, algorithmic twenty-first century, from the author of the acclaimed international bestseller, These Truths. The Simulmatics Corporation, founded in 1959, mined data, targeted voters, accelerated news, manipulated consumers, destabilized politics, and disordered knowledge--decades before Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Cambridge Analytica. Silicon Valley likes to imagine it has no past but the scientists of Simulmatics are the long-dead grandfathers of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. Borrowing from psychological warfare, they used computers to predict and direct human behavior, deploying their "People Machine" from New York, Cambridge, and Saigon for clients that included John Kennedy's presidential campaign, the New York Times, Young & Rubicam, and, during the Vietnam War, the Department of Defense. Jill Lepore, distinguished Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer, unearthed from the archives the almost unbelievable story of this long-vanished corporation, and of the women hidden behind it. In the 1950s and 1960s, Lepore argues, Simulmatics invented the future by building the machine in which the world now finds itself trapped and tormented, algorithm by algorithm"--