How Data Happened: A History from the Age of Reason to the Age of Algorithms

A sweeping history of data and its technical, political, and ethical impact on our world.



From facial recognition-capable of checking us onto flights or identifying undocumented residents-to automated decision systems that inform everything from who gets loans to who receives bail, each of us moves through a world determined by data-empowered algorithms. But these technologies didn't just appear: they are part of a history that goes back centuries, from the census enshrined in the US Constit...