My current books:
Hot Type
The Magnificent Machine that Gave Birth to Mass Media and Drove Mark Twain Mad
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.
Order now from:
The Gutenberg Parenthesis
The Age of Print and Its Lessons for the Age of the Internet
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. Soon in paperback.
(Spanish translation from Rey Naranjo.)
Order now from:
🏷️ Now an audiobook!
Magazine
Part of Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons, a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.
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.
Order now from:
🏷️ Now an audiobook!
The Web We Weave
Why We Must Reclaim the Internet from Moguls, Misanthropes, and
Moral Panic
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.
Order now from:
