The Real World of Technology

This series of lectures, delivered in 1989, examines the social and political conseqences of technology in the real world, that is, in our everyday lives. Franklin, an experimental physicist and humanitarian, constructs a criticism of technology that puts the needs of humans ahead of the needs of technology, a stance that ought to be unremarkable, except it isnt. The lectures are prescient: forseeing many of the complications of communication technology that predominate present conversations. I read it twice through, and expect to spend yet more time with it.