Forged in War

"[I]deal for readers seeking a more comprehensive look at information dissemination technology, its context, and its impact on the way in which we now live." Library Journal, Starred Review • The tools of our information age—from search engines to data mining to smart appliances—grew directly out of conflicts from World War I to the present day. Explore how today’s Information Society reflects a worldview shaped by a century of war.

"[I]deal for readers seeking a more comprehensive look at information dissemination technology, its context, and its impact on the way in which we now live." Library Journal, Starred Review

Many of what we think of as Information Age tools and media — computers, cell phones, the internet, encryption, and more — evolved directly out of modern warfare. These tools started with World War I (which began not with arms, but with England cutting off underwater cables to Germany and isolating it), accelerated through World War II and the Cold War, and now play a center role in both declared and non-declared conflicts like election interference and cyberbattles.

We buy phones and smart speakers because they are new and unlock great potential. Voice assistants like Siri and Alexa help us do our work and answer that one piece of trivia that bugs us. Yet these devices are data gatherers. They collect, repackage, and monetize our questions, purchases, photographs, web surfing to form a data industry now larger than the oil industry.

Well over 100 years ago the data industry put in place a business model that trades our attention for news and entertainment. That model has evolved into a complex art and science of message targeting and content ownership that has splintered communities while simultaneously concentrating media ownership to a few massive corporations.

Forged in War takes a critical look at the systems we use and how we ended up in a society that values data over personal liberty and commerce over the public good. It tells a compelling and previously story of how our ideas of information and knowledge reflect the century of war that has militarized our worldview.

Author David Lankes’s work has been funded by organizations such as The MacArthur Foundation, The Institute for Library and Museum Services, NASA, The U.S. Department of Education, The U.S. Department of Defense, The National Science Foundation, and The U.S. State Department. This, his latest book will help all of us learn how war has shaped our world and how to begin to create an agenda to stand down weaponized data and a media that seeks to own our personal, even intimate data like one owns a gold mine.

Table of Contents

Introduction: From Alert to a Promise to the Reader

Data

Chapter 1 Common Carriers: From Telegraphs to Internet Kill Switches

Chapter 2 Encryption: From Zimmerman to the Monetized Self

Chapter 3 Massive Scale Computing: From Depth Bombs to Deep Learning

Chapter 4 The Internet: From Hydrogen Bombs to 5G

Chapter 5 The World Wide Web: From CERN to Facial Recognition

Chapter 6 Dataism: From Reducing Noise to Reducing People

Media

Chapter 7 Propaganda: From Influencing Minds to Manipulating Brains

Chapter 8 Memory Organizations: From Weaponized Librarianship to a Digital Dark Age

From Collecting Books to Collecting Intelligence

Chapter 9 Media Consolidation: From Steamboat Willie to Disney +

Chapter 10 Trust: From Walter Cronkite to Saul Alinsky

Society

Chapter 11 Certainty: From Clockwork to Complexity

Chapter 12 Pandemic: From the Spanish Flu to COVID-19

Chapter 13 People: From Empty Campuses to Open Arms

Chapter 14 Technology: From Zoom Bombs to the Shin Bet

Chapter 15 Sources: From Swans in Venice to Floods in New Orleans

Chapter 16 Policy: From a Commodity to a Public Good

Chapter 17 A Choice: From Chemical Warfare to Healing the World

Excursus: On the Joys of Writing and How to Check My Facts

About the Author