Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything
‘Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything’ by James Gleick; Abacus, 1999. 326pp Reviewed by Peter Smith | 25 July 2003 Faster is a quick paced, entertaining description of the spread of technology and its impact on our lives. Unlike other superficial accounts Gleick locates recent developments in consumer goods and information technology within a broader context of development, citing railroads and the telephone...
Rocket Dreams
‘Rocket Dreams: How the Space Age Shaped Our Vision of a World Beyond’ by Marina Benjamin; Simon & Schuster, 2003. 242pp Reviewed by Martin Earnshaw | 27 June 2003 What became of our dreams of the aspirations that fuelled the ‘space age’ of the 50’s and 60’s? In this fascinating study Marina Benjamin takes on this problem in a fresh and innovative way. Rather than recount the familiar story of cut funds and scrapped...
Where’s my Space Age?
‘Where’s my Space Age?’ by Sean Topham; Prestel, 2003, pp160 Review by Austin Williams | 31 July 2003 This fascinating book, written by Seam Topham (who’s recent book ‘Blow Up’ was reviewed in the Architects’ Journal), asks ‘whatever happened to the space age?’ Constructed in three parts, with a two-page conclusion at the end, the book examines the historical moment of space...
Splintering Urbanism
‘Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition’ by Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin; Routledge, 2001. 512pp Review by Austin Williams | 20 December 2001 This important book develops the authors’ 1996 analysis of contested flows in ‘Telecommunications and the City: Electronic spaces, Urban Places’. In that book, the authors’ views were left to the...