Read more
Algorithmic Modernity brings together experts in the history of mathematics to create an informed history for readers interested in the social and cultural implications of today's pervasive digital algorithm.
List of contents
- Introduction
- Morgan G. Ames and Massimo Mazzotti
- Chapter 1: Algorithm and Demonstration in the Sixteenth-Century Ars Magna
- Abram Kaplan
- Chapter 2: "Some call it Arsmetrike, and some Awgryme": Misprision and Precision in Algorithmic Thinking and Learning in 1543 and Beyond
- Michael J. Barany
- Chapter 3: The Orderly Universe: How the Calculus Became an Algorithm
- Amir Alexander
- Chapter 4: The Algorithmic Enlightenment
- J.B. Shank
- Chapter 5: Capitalism by Algorithm: Numbers for the Innumerate in the 18th and 19th Century Atlantic World
- Caitlin C. Rosenthal
- Chapter 6: Material Mathematics: British Algebra as Algorithmic Mathematics
- Kevin Lambert
- Chapter 7: "For Computing is Our Duty": Algorithmic Workers, Servants, and Women at the Harvard Observatory
- Andrew Fiss
- Chapter 8: Seeds of Control: Sugar Beets, Control Algorithms, and New Deal Data Politics
- Theodora Dryer
- Chapter 9: Inference Rituals: Algorithms and the History of Statistics
- Christopher J. Phillips
- Chapter 10: Decision Trees, Random Forests, and the Genealogy of the Black Box
- Matthew L. Jones
- Index
About the author
Morgan G. Ames, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Practice in the School of Information and Associate Director of Research for the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine and Society at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Ames researches the ideological origins of inequality in the technology world, with a focus on utopianism, childhood, and learning. Her first book, The Charisma Machine: The Life, Death, and Legacy of One Laptop per Child (MIT Press, 2019), won the 2020 Best Information Science Book Award, the 2020 Sally Hacker Prize, and the 2021 Computer History Museum Prize.
Massimo Mazzotti, PhD, is Thomas M. Siebel Professor of the History of Science and Director of the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine, and Society at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Mazzotti has published on the gendering of mathematics, mathematics and religion, Enlightenment science, and the politics of various processes of quantification, standardization, and mechanization. His
current projects explore the political dimension of mathematical reasoning in revolutionary Europe; the intersection of technology, design, and social planning in post-war Italy; and the social life of algorithms.
Summary
Algorithmic Modernity brings together experts in the history of mathematics to create an informed history for readers interested in the social and cultural implications of today's pervasive digital algorithm.
Additional text
Algorithms are both centuries old and central to today's hopes and fears. In this compelling book, ten first-rate historians of science and mathematics trace the genealogy of algorithmic practices and ideas that play a crucial role in the modern world.
