Customer Reviews
A rare innovative book - a real 'Pandora's Box' - By: Geoffrey Darnton, 19 Dec 2007 
This book is a real breath of fresh air in the piles of standard IS & IT textbooks. The first question: is it a textbook or not? The authors have achieved a very difficult balance between professional book & textbook - professionals will find it useful, as will students (and I'm tempted to replace the word 'useful' by 'essential'.
The book is a breath of fresh air because it discusses & takes forward, a whole series of essential debates about the rapidly emerging uses of information in what many people proclaim as a new information age.
The Amazon listing gives access to the contents so look there for the book's scope. In my opinion, this book is bordering on the essential reading for everyone concerned with information, the information age, information systems, information technology, & the very modern things different people are doing with these. As I read through the book, I kept thinking about further issues that would have been nice, & topics that could be taken deeper - but there is a realistic limit to what can be achieved in 600 pages. Whether you agree with the authors or not is perhaps not even the point - they discuss very important issues that should be taken into account by every professional & student of information, its uses, & its supporting technology. This book is a very stimulating read.
Does it cover new ground? Yes - the minimum new ground lies at least in its collation of current major issues. The second, & perhaps deeper contribution lies in its critical comments (that's one area where I would like more depth - but I remind myself - it's already 600 pages). Thirdly, it has even invented some new words (sensibly & appropriately in my view) - for example 'teledildonics' - I'll leave you as a reader to explore the book & find out what that is alll about.
