The State vs Information?

Siegel, Jacob.  The Information State: Politics in the Age of Total Control.  New York: Henry Holt, 

         2026.  ISBN: 9781250363121

 

So what is information?  And how is information related to personal knowledge?   To public knowledge and action?  To politics?   To government control?  These are the types of questions Jacob Siegel tries to answer in The Information State.

 

Jacob Siegel opens the books with a brief dive back into history - back to Aristotle and Plato, up through the Middle Ages and then settling in with the invention  printing press to discuss the growth of censorship and state intervention in the spread of information and opinion.  Starting with World War I and the Wilson administration Siegel gets down into the weeds in regard to the details of how the government involvement in information control grew through World War I, World War II, the Cold War, the War on Terror, and then ending with the birth and explosive growth of the World Wide Web and social media platforms.  Siegel also spends time on the opposition to government control that grew up in the same time period.  Unfortunately, the latter part of the book reveals a bias that slants his coverage of events and organizations.  

 

If you are looking for information on how we got into the present political/information conundrum, you could read this title. but, with caution.  As with all titles, remember to read with care and double check their sources!