Books

The Linotype mechanized the 400-year-old process of setting type one laborious letter at a time, and thus ignited an explosion of newspaper, book, and magazine empires. The technology helped transform Mark Twain into a premier literary celebrity, but also cost him his fortune — as well as his sense of humor and optimism. The Linotype’s era was a bridge between Twain’s Gilded Age with its tycoons of steam, steel, and wire and today’s Gilded Age with its barons of bits and AI.

The internet stands accused of dividing us, spying on us, making us stupid, and addicting our children. In response, the press and panicked politicians seek greater regulation and control, which could ruin the web before we are finished building it.

The Gutenberg Parenthesis traces the epoch of print from its controversial beginnings to our digital present — and draws out lessons for the age to come.

Now in paperback. Also available in Spanish translation from Rey Naranjo.

For a century, magazines were the authors of culture and taste, of intelligence and policy – until they were overthrown by the voices of the public themselves online. Here is a tribute to all that magazines were, from their origins in London and on Ben Franklin’s press; through their boom – enabled by new technologies – as creators of a new media aesthetic and a new mass culture; into their opulent days in advertising-supported conglomerates; and finally to their fall at the hands of the internet.

Part of Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons, a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

A tour through possible futures for journalism: news as a service rather than a product, built on relationships with the people it serves. Geeks Bearing Gifts examines new forms for news, from platforms and ecosystems to the link economy, and new business models to sustain it, from patronage and paywalls to data and relationship advertising.

The full text is also available free online at Medium.

Johannes Gutenberg was history’s first technology entrepreneur: he raised capital, built prototypes in secret, stayed in stealth mode, and lost control of his company to his investor. This short Kindle Single tells his story as a startup saga and finds in it the roots of today’s Silicon Valley.

Privacy gets all the attention, but publicness is what the internet has made newly possible — and it is under threat. Public Parts argues that sharing is a form of power: it builds relationships, enables collaboration, holds institutions accountable, and creates new ways to live, work, and govern.

Google is more than a company; it is a new way of thinking. What Would Google Do? distills the rules by which Google and the internet operate — openness, links, platforms, abundance, and handing control to the public — and asks what would happen if every industry, from newspapers to car makers to government, were rebuilt around them.