Data Empire by Roopika Risam.
Risam takes readers back to the dawn of data, charting the course of human recordkeeping from Mesopotamian farming to present-day surveillance technology.
Inspired by an incident in her own life in which she discovered a singular database error that could have upended her world, Risam considers how much of our lives are dictated by data — especially when it is wielded as a weapon.
The book’s historical vignettes “are imaginatively brought to life” and inspire readers to ask “questions about what we can do to deal with the new data regimes” of today. Buy Data Empire from your local bookstore.