MITPressLog

Uncle Sam's Reading List

To get into the Independence Day 2011 spirit, we picked 11 books with “America” or “American” in the title to kick off the holiday weekend. Happy Fourth of July!

  Inventing American History by William Hogeland

American public history—in magazines and books, television documentaries, and museums—tends to celebrate its subject at all costs, even to the point of denial and distortion. This does us a great disservice, argues William Hogeland.  Looking at details glossed over in three examples of public history—the Alexander Hamilton revival, tributes to Pete Seeger and William F. Buckley, and the Constitution Center in Philadelphia—Hogeland considers what we lose when history is written to conform to political aims.

Why America Is Not a New Rome by Vaclav Smil

America's post–Cold War strategic dominance and its pre-recession affluence inspired pundits to make celebratory comparisons to ancient Rome at its most powerful. Now, with America no longer perceived as invulnerable, engaged in protracted fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and suffering the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, comparisons are to the bloated, decadent, ineffectual later Empire. In Why America Is Not a New Rome, Vaclav Smil looks at these comparisons in detail. He finds profound differences.

 

After America’s Midlife Crisis by Michael Gecan

Gecan reveals an urban landscape in which careerism, nepotism, and greed are the principal movers in policy, while the institutions that preserve and advance communities—schools, churches, affordable housing, recreational opportunities—have fallen prey to the indifference of pols and developers and the shortsightedness of technocrats and shows how local experiments can create vibrant institutions that truly serve their constituents.

 

America's Food : What You Don't Know About What You Eat by Harvey Blatt

We don't think much about how food gets to our tables, or what had to happen to fill our supermarket's produce section with perfectly round red tomatoes and its meat counter with slabs of beautifully marbled steak. We don't realize that the meat in one fast-food hamburger may come from many different cattle raised in several different countries. In fact, most of us have a fairly abstract understanding of what happens on a farm. In America's Food, Harvey Blatt gives us the specifics.

The Passionate Mistakes and Intricate Corruption of One Girl in America by Michelle Tea

The too-smart, caustic, and radiant narrator of Passionate Mistakes is, at twenty-seven, an ex-Goth, ex-drummer, ex-straight girl, ex-lesbian separatist vegan graduate of vocational high school in the working class town of Chelsea, Massachusetts. Written with lyrical precision and charm, the novel describes a journey with no final destination, a fast-paced and picaresque road trip that yields a redemptive vision of an America that has nothing left to offer its youth.

 

America Starts Here: Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler edited by Ian Berry and Bill Arning

During their decade-long collaboration (1985-1995), Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler produced some of the most influential conceptual art projects of the time. Among their witty and stimulating installations and outdoor projects was Camouflaged History, a house painted in a U.S. Army-designed camouflage pattern using 72 commercial paint colors included in the municipally-approved "authentic colors" of historic Charleston, South Carolina.  Ericson and Ziegler took the whole country as their working space; but rather than impose a conspicuous work of art upon a site or situation, they devised projects that altered sites subtly, creating a patchwork of poetic narratives and histories to be excavated.

 

Inequality in America: What Role for Human Capital Policies? by James J. Heckman and Alan B. Krueger

The surge of inequality in income and wealth in the United States over the past twenty-five years has reversed the steady progress toward greater equality that had been underway throughout most of the twentieth century. This economic development has defied historical patterns and surprised many economists, producing vigorous debate. Inequality in America: What Role for Human Capital Policies? examines the ways in which human capital policies can address this important problem.

 

America as Second Creation: Technology and Narratives of New Beginnings by David E. Nye

After 1776, the former American colonies began to reimagine themselves as a unified, self-created community. Technologies had an important role in the resulting national narratives, and a few technologies assumed particular prominence. Among these were the axe, the mill, the canal, the railroad, and the irrigation dam. In this book David Nye explores the stories that clustered around these technologies. In doing so, he rediscovers an American story of origins, with America conceived as a second creation built in harmony with God's first creation.

 

Henry Hobson Richardson and the Small Public Library in America: A Study in Typology by Kenneth A. Breisch

One natural outcome of the educational reform movement of the 1840s was the growth of the American public library. Some 450 public libraries were built in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The most important and influential architect of the era who built libraries was Henry Hobson Richardson, perhaps best known for his design of Boston's Trinity Church.

 

What Does the World Want from America?: International Perspectives on US Foreign Policy edited by Alexander T. J. Lennon

In What Does the World Want from America?, writers from twelve countries or regions (Brazil, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, Russia, Singapore, and South Africa) answer the question, "In an ideal world, what role would you want the United States to perform with your country and region?" Four analysts from the United States then respond.

 

The Bauhaus and America: First Contacts, 1919-1936 by Margret Kentgens-Craig

Although the Bauhaus existed for a mere fourteen years and boasted fewer than 1,300 students, its influence is felt throughout the world in numerous buildings, artworks, objects, concepts, and curricula. After the Bauhaus's closing in 1933, many of its protagonists moved to the United States, where their acceptance had to be cultivated. Margret Kentgens-Craig shows that the fame of the Bauhaus in America was the result not only of the inherent qualities of its concepts and products, but also of a unique congruence of cultural supply and demand, of a consistent flow of information, and of fine-tuned marketing. 

 

The Right to Romance

Paul Abramson, who teaches psychology at the UCLA, has made a forceful contribution to the debate over regulations prohibiting consensual relationships between students and faculty. Abramson thinks that such rules are not only unwise but unconstitutional. He set out his thoughts in an essay that appeared yesterday in the Boston Globe's Ideas section. A sample:

"Over the last decade, there has been a dramatic shift in how universities handle romantic relationships between teachers and students. Sparked in part by fears of expensive sexual harassment lawsuits, colleges have widely banned such relationships, adopting strict rules on dating among students, professors, and even teaching assistants. These rules ignore the rights and liberties of students and professors alike, and treat both as if they were children. They also represent an assault on one of the most fundamental rights of conscience: the right to choose our relationships."

You can read the whole essay here. Abramson sets out his position in his book Romance in the Ivory Tower, which we will publish later this month.

Protecting America or making it more vulnerable?

Susan Landau, coauthor of Privacy on the Line, has an op-ed in today's Washington Post, commenting on the recently passed Protect America Act, which updated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Among the more noteworthy features of the Act is the fact that it allows the NSA to tap foreign nationals' internet and phone communications that are routed through the U.S., without obtaining a FISA warrant. Landau points out that the infrastructure needed to accomplish this task effectively would likely be subject to misuse by others:

"Grant the NSA what it wants, and within 10 years the United States will be vulnerable to attacks from hackers across the globe, as well as the militaries of China, Russia and other nations."

Read the entirety of "A Gateway for Hackers" here. More information about the new edition of Privacy on the Line is here.

Diffie on Computerworld

Over on Computerworld, you can find a substantial excerpt from the revised and expanded edition of Privacy on the Line by Whitfield Diffie and Susan Landau. Since the first edition was published in 1998, it's become a standard work on the politics, policy, and law on wiretapping and encryption. Accompanying the excerpt is a podcast of an interview with Whitfield Diffie. Here's a snippet from the interview:

“The reason that we brought out Privacy on the Line in this revised and expanded edition is to reflect this shift in the policy argument – and in particular our concern that if [wiretapping] is applied to internet telephony in the same way that the law now applies it to conventional telephony, it may both stifle innovation and present unprecedented threats to national security…”

Read the excerpt and hear the podcast here.

Tarleton Gillespie on Steve Jobs and DRM

A few days ago, Apple CEO Steve Jobs made waves with an essay on Apple's website called "Thoughts on Music." In it he voiced concern about digital rights management technologies (DRM) that are used in music distribution (such as Apple's iTunes) to protect against piracy. They also impose significant controls on what users may do with music files, though, and their use is becoming increasingly controversial.

Surprisingly, Jobs called for the abolition of DRM. "Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats," he wrote. "In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat."

We thought we should check in with Tarleton Gillespie to see what this might bode for the future of DRM and digital media. Gillespie teaches information policy and mass media at Cornell University, and his first book, Wired Shut: Copyright and the Shape of Digital Culture, will be published this spring. Here are his thoughts:

In 1993, studio producer and ex-punk rocker Steve Albini wrote a now infamous essay called "The Problem with Music," in which he laid out in stinging detail the real economics of the typical recording contract. When he revealed that a band that signs with a major label, receives a quarter million dollar advance and sells a quarter million copies of their album, ends up earning just over $12,000 dollars for their efforts, while the label takes in $710,000 for helping them do it, the critique was particularly potent because it came from inside the industry itself.

Steve Jobs' "Thoughts on Music," posted to the Apple website on February 6th, is offered up a bit more delicately, but the statement is just as significant for the clout of its author. The Apple CEO suggests that it is time for the major music labels to give up on imposing copy protection on their digital music. This is copy protection, mind you, that Jobs has helped enforce and make commonplace via the Apple iTunes store -- though if we are to believe Jobs, that was entirely an obligation imposed by the labels as part of the privilege of selling their music. He notes that copy protection, or "digital rights management" (DRM), has failed to slow the peer-to-peer file-trading of music, has irritated customers by slowing the move to digital services, is and always will be vulnerable to hackers, and is meaningless when most popular music is still purchased on CD, which (generally) includes no copy protections. Instead, the labels should give in, allow Apple and others to sell music in unprotected formats like mp3, and look to profit from the flood of distribution opportunities that would emerge.

Jobs is by no means the first to say this. Even the major labels are slowly beginning to admit that the DRM strategy – at least as a solution to piracy – is not all it's cracked up to be. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that Jobs is saying it, as it has thus far been very much in Apple's best interest to support the labels' copy protection fetish, at least to a degree; the phenomenal popularity of the iPod is testimonial to that. Jobs, of course, is not known for walking the company line. But Apple finds itself in a tricky position, and this is the clear subtext of Jobs' "Thoughts": courts and legislatures around Europe are beginning to challenge iTunes' copy protection not as a copyright strategy, but a means of restraining trade. The copy protection scheme forced on Apple by the big bad labels also helps them sell iPods, and helps keep iTunes in a position of market dominance over Napster 2, Microsoft, and Walmart, whose downloads won't port to the popular device. Now that they may be legally compelled to license their FairPlay copy protection to their competitors, it's suddenly in Apple's interest to call for no DRM at all, and bet the ranch instead on the iPod's appealing design, devoted fan base, and on the market position it has already managed to secure. This, the ability to parse and channel and govern commercial transactions, to tie content to a platform so users will buy both from the same vendor, to track use in order to render advertising to match, to put a price on every interaction with the content imaginable, is precisely why DRM has survived and flourished despite little evidence that it curbs piracy -- and may very well persist despite Jobs' manifesto.

The Morality of Music File-Sharing

In a recent article in Inside Higher Education, Rob Capriccioso reported that a popular music file-sharing network, i2hub has shut down as of November 14th.  They reportedly did this in order to prevent possible action against them from the Recording Industry Association of America in the wake of US Supreme  Court’s recent decision in MGM Studios v. Grokster.  Napster, Grokster, and now i2hub have all been shut down, but many believe that the battle over music and video sharing is far from over and that, despite the Supreme Court’s decision in the Grokster case, people will continue to use the internet for file-sharing.  Bruce Abramson, author of Digital Phoenix: Why the Information Economy Collapsed and How It Will Rise Again, sheds some light on the current debate about and morality issues behind file-sharing on the internet:

The recent demise of Grokster, the second of the great music "sharing" systems, has led many people in a strange direction.  Rather than focusing on technology, or law, or even music, public discussion seems to hinge on the morality of file-sharing.  Even the Supreme Court has ventured in this direction; its recent ruling precipitating Grokster's demise focused almost entirely on the impropriety of encouraging users to violate record-company copyrights.

The morality of the situation, though, is a murky area.  Record company executives typically refer to the young music fans who frequent file-sharing systems as "pirates." But piracy exists only because governments choose to allocate the rights being pirated. Two hundred years ago, for example, those who attacked slave ships and freed their human cargo were unquestionably pirates, subject to significant legal penalties when caught.  Yet few today would consider their behavior immoral.

The true morality in the situation hinges upon a subtle question.  Should our government allow record companies and movie studios to control the distribution of digital products?  I explore this question in depth in Digital Phoenix.  I begin by recognizing that we, as a society, should want to compensate our creative classes for all that they give us.  I also recognize, though, that no one ever wants to overpay for anything—even for items of unquestioned value and quality. 

Copyrights, Patents, and the Information Age

The internet makes it easy to get ahold of other people's work. If you protect what you create, no one will see it, but if you put it out there, you risk it being stolen or ending up in places you don't want it to be. The information age has made it easier for us to create, communicate, and share  our work and our lives, but it is also more difficult to protect.  Copyright and patent laws are as old as the United States itself.  Times have changed but the laws and regulations have not.  How are advances in technology making it difficult to enforce copyright and patent law today?  And how do these laws protect new technologies like software programs and downloadable music and graphics? Bruce Abramson, author of Digital Phoenix: Why the Information Economy Collapsed and How It Will Rise Again, helps us make sense of the information economy in an interview on Focus 580 on Illinois Public Radio (WILL-AM).  Abramson explains that we are moving from an industrial age to an information age, but outdated copyright regulations have hindered innovation and advancement.  Focus 580 host Jack Brighton noted that Abramson's explanation of how the patent and copyright law works and what problems and opportunities the future holds was probably the best he's ever heard.

Read more at Bruce Abramson's blog, The Informationist.
 

Privacy vs. Security

Philip B. Heymann, a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and Juliette N. Kayyem, a lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, co-wrote an editorial on the importance of protecting privacy and freedom of speech while upholding the Patriot Act, which appeared in the Opinion Section of today’s Boston Globe.

Heymann and Kayyem, coauthors of the upcoming MIT Press book Protecting Liberty in an Age of Terror, are co-chairs of the Long-Term Legal Strategy Project for Preserving Security and Democratic Freedoms in the War on Terrorism. Certain sections of the Patriot Act are due to expire and Congress is expected to vote on their renewal within the next week.

We studied the toughest questions in the post-9/11 era, including the conflicting demands of privacy and security. Particularly relevant for the debate over the Patriot Act are our findings on compelled government access to private, confidential records in terrorism investigations.

The Patriot Act gave expanded powers to the federal government to seize personal records (like those retained by hotels, libraries, and medical facilities) in special national security cases where court review is either diminished or nonexistent. The act allows the government to engage in a fishing expedition, demanding records without tying the request to a specific suspect or group (in other words, without ''individualized suspicion") so long as its stated purpose is to find out something about a terrorist threat. For example, Section 215, which applies to a wide array of personal records, merely requires that the records themselves be sought for an investigation whose purpose is, in some way, ''to protect against" terrorism or spying by a foreign power -- not necessarily an investigation focused on a specific event, person, or organization.

When there is no specific event or organization that the government is investigating, relevance or motivation simply doesn't work as any limit on gathering information. Investigations undertaken in order to somehow protect against international terrorism could, if nothing more specific is required, examine any of the lawful activities of any citizen, including citizens in no way suspected of any specific link to terrorism or crime, such as subscribers of particular magazines. This has potentially serious implications for privacy and freedom of speech. Our project recommended that the standards for obtaining private, personally identifiable information in such investigations -- for example, to obtain access to library records -- should be based on individualized reasonable suspicion.

We believe that compelled access to personal records should depend on whether there is a judicial finding of a link between the records and an individual or organization already reasonably suspected of being engaged in terrorism or a specific planned or executed act of terrorism — or of being in contact with such a suspect.

Read the full article at Bostonglobe.com.