Civic Tech Book Club

Reading List

Currently Reading

We do not currently have a pop-up discussion scheduled. Suggest a reading on the Listserv!

Past & Suggested Readings on Bookshop.org

You can also browse past reading selections and recommended reading on our Civic Tech Book Club Reading List on Bookshop.org. Bookshop.org is committed to helping local, independent bookstores thrive in the age of e-commerce. For titles not available on Bookshop, see below.

Not Available on Bookshop.org

Past Readings

• Administrative Burdens in the time of COVID-19 (webinar) with Pamela Herd and Donald Moynihan.
• The Affirmative Information Policy: Opening Up a Closed City by John Kretzman Source: P. Clavel and W. Wiewel, eds, Harold Washington and the Neighbourhoods: Progressive City Government in Chicago 1983-1987. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1991.
• Convivial Reconstruction by Ivan Illich from Tools for Conviviality Source: Fontana/Collins, 1973.
• Designing Freedom, Regulating a Nation: Socialist Cybernetics in Allende’s Chile by Eden Medina Source: Journal of Latin American Studies 38 (2006): 571-606. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
• The Drama! Teen Conflict, Gossip, and Bullying in Networked Publics by Alice E. Marwick and danah boyd.
• Investigation on Competition in Digital Markets Source: United States House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law, 2020. & U.S. v. Google Source: Department of Justice, 2020.
• Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System by Donella Meadows.
• The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (the 1965 Moynihan Report) by Daniel Patrick Moynihan Source: Office of Policy and Planning. U.S. Department of Labor, March 1965.
• The Participant by Christopher M. Kelty.
• Predictive Policing: The Role of Crime Forecasting in Law Enforcement Operations by Walter L. Perry, Brian McInnis, Carter C. Price, Susan C. Smith, John S. Hollywood Source: RAND Corporation, 2013
• Roles for Computing in Social Change by Rediet Abebe, Solon Barocas, Jon Kleinberg, Karen Levy, Manish Raghavan, David G. Robinson Source: Cornell University, 2019.
• The Santiago Boys podcast.
• SNCC (film) by Danny Lyon.
• So you want to reform democracy by Josh Tauberer.
• Street–Level Algorithms: A Theory at the Gaps Between Policy and Decisions by Alkhatib and Bernstein.
• Violence and Economic Activity: Evidence from African American Patents, 1870 to 1940 by Lisa D. Cook Source: Michigan State University, 2013.

Suggested Readings

• Affective Disorders of the State: A Spinozan Diagnosis and Cure by Ericka Tucker Source: Journal of East-West Thought: 3 (2):97-120, 2013.
• The Government Machine: A Revolutionary History of the Computer by Jon Agar Source: MIT Press, September 2003.
• The Holodeck of Motive by Aaron Straup Cope Source: aaronland.info, February 2015.
• Investigation into data analytics for political purposes by the Information Commissioner Office.
• The Politics of Information Reform in Chicago: An Experiment in Democratization by John P Kretzmann Source: Ph. D. (Sociology)–Northwestern University, 1985.
• The Public and its Problems by John Dewey Source: Henry Holt and Company, 1927.
• Red Plenty Platforms by Nick Dyer-Witheford Source: Culture Machine Vol 14, 2013.
• Scenarios: Shooting the Rapids by Pierre Wack Source: Harvard Business Review November, 1985.
• Seeing Like a Geek by Tom Slee Source: crookedtimber.org, June 2012.
• Socialize the Data Centres! by Evgeny Morozov Source: New Left Review 91, January-February 2015.
• Solidarity Not Charity: Mutual Aid for Mobilization and Survivial by Dean Spade.
• Truth and Politics by Hannah Arendt Source: The New Yorker, 1967.