“Google’s famous search algorithm emulates the principle of scholarly citation—counting up and evaluating earlier links in order to steer users toward the source that others have already found helpful. In a sense, the system resembles nothing more than trillions of old-fashioned footnotesâ€
Anthony Grafton on the digitization of books in The New Yorker
China Mieville, a sci-fi/fantasy/hard-to-classify author and part-time writer on international law, wrote a scathing indictment of libertarian philosophy that also laments how they stole the original coolness of floating city-states, giant ships that only function under their own laws. It’s a great, great read.
Samantha Powers finished the Pulitzer Prize-winning “A Problem From Hell”: America in the Age of Genocide back in 2002, and since finishing that astonishingly-good book has written quite a few articles and advised Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. But she’s working on a new book as well, one that her job-related profile describes as “a political biography of the UN’s Sergio Vieira de Mello.” However, the info page accompanying a 2006 commencement speech of hers describes her next book as “on the causes and consequences of historical amnesia in American foreign policy.” I don’t know which one takes precedence - or whether they’re both describing the same project - but I have to say that the latter description sounds incredibly interesting.
David Foster Wallace - author of two excellent non-fiction essay collections, a few different short story collections, and a little novel called Infinite Jest - is guest editor for The Best American Essays this year. His duties are to select the essays included in the collection and write an introduction to them all, and the latter was just placed online by the publisher. It’s an excellent read, covering everything from the purpose of essays to his role as a filter of them.
The New Yorker recently featured what was ostensibly a profile of Gerry Kasparov, former chess champion and current opposition leader in Russia. But it was written by David Remnick, the current editor-in-chief of the publication and long-time reporter on Russia since winning the Pulitzer Prize for his book-length account of the fall of Communism. The result is a thorough, engaging report on the current state of Russian politics aka. Vladimir Putin, one that goes well with his earlier profiles on Putin and others in Reporting, Remnick’s recent collection of New Yorker pieces.
Book Trailer for Naomi Klein’s new book The Shock Doctrine, which postulates that culturally-traumatic events have been used to push extreme forms of capitalism upon foreign nations.
“We have invented libraries because we know that we do not have divine powers, but we try to do our best to imitate them.”
Umberto Eco