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Best books about the digital, the web & culture?

I’m doing a little informal survey. I’d like to know what you think are the three most important books about the web, the digital, and its cultural implications. These could be books about technology, about sociology, about philosophy; but generally books that have helped, and will continue to help us navigate the future as it becomes increasingly digital.

That is, what three books have you read about computers and culture that have stood the test of time, and deserve to be read, or reread again?

I’ll get the ball rolling, with three that have had a profound impact on my thinking:
* Wealth of Networks, by Yochai Benkler
* Free Culture, by Lawrence Lessig
* Programming the Uviverse, by Seth Lloyd

If you have suggestions, why not post comments here, or Tweet with the hashtag: #digitalculturebooks.

7 Comments

  1. Michael Michael 2010-06-03

    On any list like this I still believe Howard Rheingold’s The Virtual Community should occupy a prominent spot. Much of what we wrote in 1993 (and revisited in 2000) is still very apt.

  2. Michael Michael 2010-06-03

    On any list like this I still believe Howard Rheingold’s The Virtual Community should occupy a prominent spot. Much of what he wrote in 1993 (and revisited in 2000) is still very pertinent – maybe more so, in that it seems that many people have forgotten lessons that were learned decades ago.

  3. Michael Nielsen Michael Nielsen 2010-06-03

    Mancur Olson’s “The Logic of Collective Action” (1965) and Elinor Ostrom’s “Governing the Commons” (1990) are great books about collective behaviour. They’re not literally about the web, but they certainly help understand it.

    Aside from the Benkler and Lessig books you mention, I very much like Clay Shirky’s “Here Comes Everybody” and Cass Sunstein’s “Infotopia”.

  4. Michael Michael 2010-06-08

    Anything / everything by neal stephenson. :) Especially “in the beginning was the command line”. And Julian Dibbell’s “A Rape in Cyberspace” – less because of the meaning of the “virtual” assualt and more because of the reflections on governance.

  5. qmpoau qmpoau 2010-06-24

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