OCTOBER 2019 - AudioFile
Narrator Cat Gould’s Australian accent and warm tone make her an ideal choice to explain the logic that author Lizzie O’Shea proposes: looking backward, rather than forward, to better understand the challenges of our modern mind, society, and self. O’Shea is a specialist in all matters digital and also practices as a public interest attorney. A ‘‘usable past,” she says may assist us in our shared digital future. Significant effort is made in knitting the historic movement known as the 1871 Paris Commune, among others, to our age of bits and bytes. Gould’s easy-to-assimilate narration shines in the emphatic portions in which O’Shea makes strong comments on class concerns such as the unequal distribution of digital access to all world citizens. This is a well-researched highly academic exercise that is entertaining nonetheless—thanks to narrator Gould. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
From the Publisher
Before we became big data bundles for the lackeys of Dorsey, Jobs, Zuckerberg, and Bezos, to exploit, the digital revolution seemed to promise a democratic utopia, a commons in cyberspace not governed by neoliberal norms. Can we realize that revolutionary dream and stop desiring our own domination? Incredibly, yet thrillingly and plausibly, Lizzie O’Shea argues that, if only we can mobilize history to serve rather than enervate us, the answer is yes.”
—Stuart Jeffries
“There has never been a better time to pull the politics of platform capitalism into the foreground where it belongs. Lizzie O’Shea brings a hacker’s curiosity, a historian’s reach and a lawyer’s precision to bear on our digitally saturated present, emerging with a compelling argument that a better world is there for the taking.”
—Scott Ludlam
“A potent, timely, and unrepentantly radical reminder of history’s creative potential. Lizzie O’Shea’s Future Histories should be required reading for anyone planning on surviving—and even repairing—our grim technological moment.”
—Claire L. Evans
“A thought-provoking text for readers looking to approach the subject [of digital technologies] from a well-informed … perspective.”
—Engineering and Technology Magazine
“There’s plenty of history in Future Histories, but the perspective is polemical and eclectic: a pinch of socialism, a dash of anarchism, relentless strictures on digital misconduct, and, throughout, a salutary call to use technology to fulfill humanity’s potential.”
—Choice
“In engaging, sparkling prose, O’Shea shows us how very human our understanding of technology is, and what potential exists for struggle, for liberation, for art and poetry in our digital present.”
—New Books Network
“O’Shea’s approach is avowedly episodic as she mines history for illuminating gems.”
—Hettie O’brien, Times Literary Supplement
“This insightful, provocative book is an intellectual kaleidoscope that sits effortlessly at the crossroads between investigation, history and radical philosophy.”
—Victorian Premier’s Literary Award panel
“A startlingly original book, one that belies comparison to most other books … Although it is not, I would argue, a fair expectation that writers who analyse or expose societal problems should also be the ones to prescribe the remedies to solve them, this hefty task is one that O’Shea takes on with aplomb and considerable skill.”
—Ruby Hamad, Meanjin
OCTOBER 2019 - AudioFile
Narrator Cat Gould’s Australian accent and warm tone make her an ideal choice to explain the logic that author Lizzie O’Shea proposes: looking backward, rather than forward, to better understand the challenges of our modern mind, society, and self. O’Shea is a specialist in all matters digital and also practices as a public interest attorney. A ‘‘usable past,” she says may assist us in our shared digital future. Significant effort is made in knitting the historic movement known as the 1871 Paris Commune, among others, to our age of bits and bytes. Gould’s easy-to-assimilate narration shines in the emphatic portions in which O’Shea makes strong comments on class concerns such as the unequal distribution of digital access to all world citizens. This is a well-researched highly academic exercise that is entertaining nonetheless—thanks to narrator Gould. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
