This book discusses how computers are shaping contemporary society, with a tight focus on the role of corporations and governments. It is aimed at government policymakers interested in economic development and at private-sector managers who routinely make decisions to acquire and use information technology, now a worldwide expenditure of over $2 trillion annually. The book will also interest a wide range of academics concerned with the sociology, history, economics, and the effects of IT on contemporary society, ands to the general trade market.

We are defined by the tools and technologies we use. They shape our identity. They feed and shelter us. But they also threaten our very existence. What separates us from all other animals is primarily the plethora of tools and technologies we created for our well-being and for our very survival. They are the source of our admirable success as a species; and they are the source of our most terrifying problems. Sometimes, they are the only solution to the very problems they created. That puts us in a race against ourselves, a race among technologies, a race between the good they do and the misery they cause, often the same technology doing both at different times and under different conditions. This has been the human condition from the beginning of our species, and it will likely be the human condition at the end. Although we appear helpless, being dragged along a road carved by our own creations, there are some things we can do to minimize the risk to ourselves, without giving up all the advantages of a myriad of technologies we created. We may not be able to eliminate the basic paradox of human existence, but we may somewhat reduce the suffering. This book is about the beauty and the misery of our technological human society, offering some modest remedies for the misery, while praising the beauty.

All the Facts presents a history of the role of information in the United States since 1870, when the nation began a nearly 150-year period of economic prosperity and technological and scientific transformations. James Cortada argues that citizens and their institutions used information extensively as tools to augment their work and private lives and that they used facts to help shape how the nation evolved during these fourteen decades. He argues that information's role has long been a critical component of the work, play, culture, and values of this nation, and no more so than during the twentieth century when its function in society expanded dramatically. While elements of this story have been examined by thousands of scholars---such as the role of radio, newspapers, books, computers, and the Internet, about such institutions as education, big business, expanded roles of governments from town administration to the state house, from agriculture to the services and information industries---All the Facts looks at all of these elements holistically, providing a deeper insight into the way the United States evolved over time. An introduction and 11 chapters describe what this information ecosystem looked like, how it evolved, and how it was used. For another vast layer of information about this subject the reader is directed to the detailed bibliographic essay in the back of this book. It includes a narrative history, case studies in the form of sidebars, and stories illustrating key points. Readers will find, for example, the story of how the US postal system helped create today's information society, along with everything from books and newspapers to TV, computers, and the Internet. The build-up to what many today call the Information Age took a long time to achieve and continues to build momentum. The implications for the world, and not just for the United States, are as profound as any mega-trend one could identify in the history of humankind. All the Facts presents this development thoroughly in an easy-to-digest format that any lover of history, technology, or the history of information and business will enjoy.

An intimate, everyday perspective on information-seeking behavior, reaching into the social context of American history and American homes. All day, every day, Americans seek information. We research major purchases. We check news and sports. We visit government Web sites for public information and turn to friends for advice about our everyday lives. Although the Internet influences our information-seeking behavior, we gather information from many sources: family and friends, television and radio, books and magazines, experts and community leaders. Patterns of information seeking have evolved throughout American history and are shaped by a number of forces, including war, modern media, the state of the economy, and government regulation. This book examines the evolution of information seeking in nine areas of everyday American life. Chapters offer an information perspective on car buying, from the days of the Model T to the present; philanthropic and charitable activities; airline travel and the complex layers of information available to passengers; genealogy, from the family Bible to Ancestry.com; sports statistics, as well as fantasy sports leagues and their fans' obsession with them; the multimedia universe of gourmet cooking; governmental and publicly available information; reading, sharing, and creating comics; and text messaging among young people as a way to exchange information and manage relationships. Taken together, these case studies provide a fascinating window on the importance of information in the past century of American life.

"This 10-volume compilation of authoritative, research-based articles contributed by thousands of researchers and experts from all over the world emphasized modern issues and the presentation of potential opportunities, prospective solutions, and future directions in the field of information science and technology"--Provided by publisher.

The history of information is a rapidly emerging new subfield of history. Historians are identifying the issues they need to examine, crafting novel research agendas, and locating research materials relevant to their work. Like the larger world around them, historians are discovering what it means to live and work in a world that increasingly sees itself as an information society. Long a discussion point among sociologists, economists, political leaders, and media experts, historians are integrating their methods and research into the larger conversation. The purpose of this book is to advocate for a way to look at the history of information and to history as a whole that is simultaneously relevant to observers in other disciplines and familiar to historians of business, economics, sociology and technology. The author presents that advocacy in two ways: with theoretical and historiographical discussions of what information ecosystems and infrastructures are and their value for this kind of research, second, through a range of case studies applying those concepts. The wide range of case studies is purposeful in demonstrating the applicability of the ideas presented in the early methodological chapters. Themes mentioned in each of the early chapters are consistently applied in all subsequent chapters. This book breaks from the more traditional historiography of book history, sociological and philosophical discussions about knowledge and society. The first two chapters focus on the craft of the historian in this new field, better known as historiography and methods. Subsequent chapters are case studies, showing what results when a historian writes about ecosystems and infrastructures, moving our discussion from theory to practice. The book is an important and substantive contribution to this new subfield, an essential primer, as well as a major statement for all historians on how next to evolve their craft.

In this original and timely book, Bruno Maçães argues that the best word for the emerging global order is 'Eurasian', and shows why we need to begin thinking on a super-continental scale. While China and Russia have been quicker to recognise the increasing strategic significance of Eurasia, even Europeans are realizing that their political project is intimately linked to the rest of the supercontinent - and as Maçães shows, they will be stronger for it. Weaving together history, diplomacy and vivid reports from his six-month overland journey across Eurasia from Baku to Samarkand, Vladivostock to Beijing, Maçães provides a fascinating portrait of this shifting geopolitical landscape. As he demonstrates, we can already see the coming Eurasianism in China's bold infrastructure project reopening the historic Silk Road, in the success of cities like Hong Kong and Singapore, in Turkey's increasing global role and in the fact that, revealingly, the United States is redefining its place as between Europe and Asia. An insightful and clarifying book for our turbulent times, The Dawn of Eurasia argues that the artificial separation of the world's largest island cannot hold, and the sooner we realise it, the better.

This book discusses the evolution of management as a profession over the past two decades and how it continues to evolve. It goes on to describe the new style of management and makes recommendations for what today’s and tomorrow’s managers must know and how to work. Offers ways to think about your role as a manager in order to optimize your effectiveness toward uncertain and turbulent changes Discusses current realities in which management currently operates Provides a historical background of managerial practices and how they’ve evolved in the present workplace

What do loving relationships, shared knowledge, innovative companies and legitimate governments have in common? They all flourish with trust and wither without. Against the astonishing scope of trust's influence in our societies we find statistics showing that trust has been dramatically declining in recent decades – a trend readily confirmed by real life events. This is the troubling starting point the book seeks to address. Through exploring the topic of trust the book provides novel perspectives on how to heal the internal divisions in the west, and more profoundly, shows how it is trust that defines successful societies in general.