James Gleick, the author of the bestsellers Chaos and Genius , brings us his crowning work: a revelatory chronicle that shows how information has become the modern era’s defining quality—the blood, the fuel, the vital principle of our world.
The story of information begins in a time profoundly unlike our own, when every thought and utterance vanished as soon as it was born. From the invention of scripts and alphabets to the long misunderstood “talking drums” of Africa, James Gleick tells the story of information technologies that changed the very nature of human consciousness. He provides portraits of the key figures contributing to the inexorable development of our modern understanding of information: Charles Babbage, the idiosyncratic inventor of the first great mechanical computer; Ada Byron, the poet’s brilliant and doomed daughter, who became the first true programmer; pivotal figures like Samuel Morse and Alan Turing; and Claude Shannon, the creator of information theory itself.
And then the information age comes upon us. Citizens of this world become experts willy-nilly: aficionados of bits and bytes. And they sometimes feel they are drowning, swept by a deluge of signs and signals, news and images, blogs and tweets. The Information is the story of how we got here and where we are heading. It will transform readers’ view of its subject.

'While reading Tyranny of the Moment, I found myself both charmed and challenged. The subject is an important one, and Thomas Hylland Eriksen handles it with style, a light touch, and many amiable provocations.' Todd Gitlin The turn of the millennium is characterized by exponential growth in everything related to communication -- from the internet and email to air traffic. Tyranny of the Moment deals with some of the most perplexing paradoxes of this new information age. Who would have expected that apparently time-saving technology results in time being scarcer than ever? And has this seemingly limitless access to information led to confusion rather than enlightenment? Eriksen argues that slow time -- private periods where we are able to think and correspond without interruption -- is now one of the most precious resources we have. Since we are theoretically 'online' 24 hours a day, we must fight for the right to be unavailable -- the right to live and think more slowly. It is not only that working hours have become longer -- Eriksen also shows how the logic of this new information technology has permeated every area of our lives. Exploring phenomena such as the internet, wap telephones, multi- channel television and email, Eriksen examines this non-linear and fragmented way of communicating to reveal how it affects working conditions in the economy, changes in family life and, ultimately, personal identity. Eriksen argues that a culture lacking a sense of its past, and therefore of its future, is effectively static. Although solutions are suggested, he demonstrates that there is no easy way out.

Henry Kissinger offers in
a deep meditation on the roots of international harmony and global disorder. Drawing on his experience as one of the foremost statesmen of the modern era—advising presidents, traveling the world, observing and shaping the central foreign policy events of recent decades—Kissinger now reveals his analysis of the ultimate challenge for the twenty-first century: how to build a shared international order in a world of divergent historical perspectives, violent conflict, proliferating technology, and ideological extremism.
There has never been a true “world order,” Kissinger observes. For most of history, civilizations defined their own concepts of order. Each considered itself the center of the world and envisioned its distinct principles as universally relevant. China conceived of a global cultural hierarchy with the Emperor at its pinnacle. In Europe, Rome imagined itself surrounded by barbarians; when Rome fragmented, European peoples refined a concept of an equilibrium of sovereign states and sought to export it across the world. Islam, in its early centuries, considered itself the world’s sole legitimate political unit, destined to expand indefinitely until the world was brought into harmony by religious principles. The United States was born of a conviction about the universal applicability of democracy—a conviction that has guided its policies ever since.
Now international affairs take place on a global basis, and these historical concepts of world order are meeting. Every region participates in questions of high policy in every other, often instantaneously. Yet there is no consensus among the major actors about the rules and limits guiding this process, or its ultimate destination. The result is mounting tension.
Grounded in Kissinger’s deep study of history and his experience as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State,
guides readers through crucial episodes in recent world history. Kissinger offers a unique glimpse into the inner deliberations of the Nixon administration’s negotiations with Hanoi over the end of the Vietnam War, as well as Ronald Reagan’s tense debates with Soviet Premier Gorbachev in Reykjavík. He offers compelling insights into the future of U.S.–China relations and the evolution of the European Union, and examines lessons of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Taking readers from his analysis of nuclear negotiations with Iran through the West’s response to the Arab Spring and tensions with Russia over Ukraine,
anchors Kissinger’s historical analysis in the decisive events of our time.
Provocative and articulate, blending historical insight with geopolitical prognostication,
is a unique work that could come only from a lifelong policymaker and diplomat.

Here's a systems engineering-level introduction to the growing field of information Warfare (IW) -- the battlefield where information is both target and weapon.

According to virtually every business writer, we are in the midst of a new "information age," one that will revolutionize how workers work, how companies compete, perhaps even how thinkers think. And it is certainly true that Information Technology has become a giant industry. In America, more that 50% of all capital spending goes into IT, accounting for more than a third of the growth of the entire American economy in the last four years. Over the last decade, IT spending in the U.S. is estimated at 3 trillion dollars. And yet, by almost all accounts, IT hasn't worked all that well. Why is it that so many of the companies that rave invested in these costly new technologies never saw the returns they had hoped for? And why do workers, even CEOs, find it so hard to adjust to new IT systems? In Information Ecology, Thomas Davenport proposes a revolutionary new way to look at information management, one that takes into account the total information environment within an organization. Arguing that the information that comes from computer systems may be considerably less valuable to managers than information that flows in from a variety of other sources, the author describes an approach that encompasses the company's entire information environment, the management of which he calls information ecology. Only when organizations are able to combine and integrate these diverse sources of information, and to take them to a higher level where information becomes knowledge, will they realize the full power of their information ecology. Thus, the author puts people, not technology, at the centre of the information world. Information and knowledge are human creations, he points out, and we will never excel at managing them until we give people a primary role. Citing examples drawn from his own extensive research and consulting including such major firms as A.T. & T., American Express, Ford, General Electric, Hallmark, Hoffman La Roche, IBM, Polaroid, Pacific Bell, and Toshiba Davenport illuminates the critical components of information ecology, and at every step along the way, he provides a quick assessment survey for managers to see how their organization measures up. He discusses the importance of developing an overall strategy for information use; explores the infighting, jealousy over resources, and political battles that can frustrate information sharing; underscores the importance of looking at how people really use information (how they search for it, modify it, share it, hoard it, and even ignore it) and the kinds of information they want; describes the ideal information staff, who not only store and retrive information, but also prune, provide context, enhance style, and choose the right presentation medium (in an age of work overload, vital information must be presented compellingly so the appropriate people recognize and use it); examines how information management should be done on a day to day basis; and presents several alternatives to the machine engineering approach to structuring and modeling information. Davenport makes explicit what many managers already know in their gut: that useful information flow depends on people, not equipment. In Information Ecology he paves the way for all managers to build a more competitive, creative, practical information environment for their companies.

Enterprise Value Management ? the next step in business value!
Considerable change has transpired in the years since the first edition of this book was published, yet the paradox remains

Computer manufacturing is--after cars, energy production and illegal drugs--the largest industry in the world, and it's one of the last great success stories in American business. Accidental Empires is the trenchant, vastly readable history of that industry, focusing as much on the astoundingly odd personalities at its core--Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mitch Kapor, etc. and the hacker culture they spawned as it does on the remarkable technology they created. Cringely reveals the manias and foibles of these men (they are always men) with deadpan hilarity and cogently demonstrates how their neuroses have shaped the computer business. But Cringely gives us much more than high-tech voyeurism and insider gossip. From the birth of the transistor to the mid-life crisis of the computer industry, he spins a sweeping, uniquely American saga of creativity and ego that is at once uproarious, shocking and inspiring.

"Should be read by anyone interested in understanding the future." - "The Times Literary Supplement".For years pundits have predicted that information technology will obliterate everything - from supermarkets to business organizations to social life itself. But beaten down by info-glut, exasperated by computer crashes, and daunted by the dot com crash, individual users find it hard to get a fix on the true potential of the digital revolution. John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid argue that the gap between digerati hype and end-user gloom is largely due to the "tunnel vision" that information-driven technologies breed. We've become so focused on where we think we ought to be - a place where technology empowers individuals and obliterates social organizations-that we often fail to see where we're really going. "The Social Life of Information" shows us how to look beyond our obsession with information and individuals to include the critical social networks of which these are always a part.John Seely Brown is the Chief Innovation Officer of 12 Entrepreneuring and the Chief Scientist of Xerox. He was the director of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) for ten years. Paul Duguid is affiliated with Xerox PARC and the University of California, Berkeley.

How do business enterprises control their subunits? In what ways do existing paths of communication within a firm affect its ability to absorb new technology and techniques? How do American banks affect how companies operate? Do theoretical constructs correspond to actual behavior?
Because business enterprises are complex institutions, these questions can prove difficult to address. All too often, firms are treated as the atoms of economics, the irreducible unit of analysis. This accessible volume, suitable for course use, looks more closely at the American firm--into its "internal" workings and its genesis in the Gilded Age. Focusing on the crucial role of imperfect and asymmetric information in the operation of enterprises, "Inside the Business Enterprise" forges an innovative link between modern economic theory and recent business history.

This comprehensive overview of the history of computing and its industry, and of commercial applications of the computer also outlines the history of how computing operations were managed within American companies. Based on extensive research in the contemporary business literature, this work is one of the few which looks at computing as business history, and it is the first to look at the broad scope of computing from the perspective of the business historian. The work is also directed at business managers to help them appreciate and understand the uses of the computer in their firms.

“本书讲述了一个失学青年凭着满腔热情和刻苦勤奋在IT行业打拼十余年最终仍然一事无成的故事。”——这样一本书你会想看吗？
简单地说，这就是一本流水账，从2000年开始直到2012年，逐年记录我自己在这个行业里折腾的经历。
想看励志书的同学们要失望了，这里没有心灵鸡汤，倒是 有不少狗血。传说中的男猪脚不怕出身贫寒只要够拼就会出人头地，这里的男猪脚出身一般天赋一般经历失学失恋离职离婚身居陋室心怀天下卧薪尝胆刻苦打拼十余年还是籍籍无名没钱没势一无所有可是没法子还得继续前行不敢止步。嗯，这是人生。
一无所有么？起码还在这个自己喜欢的行业里混着，干着自己喜欢的工作呢。而且还有一大堆八卦故事可以讲呢。——我设想中讲这些八卦故事的场景，就是下班儿以后坐路边烧烤摊，两瓶啤酒下肚以后开始扯着嗓门神侃“遥想老子当年……哎老板再来三十个串儿”这样的。那么，这样的故事是不是你喜欢听的？
而且，我妈也跟我说，你不是一无所有呀，你还有脸写书呢。
——不靠谱的作者留

While we have been preoccupied with the latest i-gadget from Apple and with Google's ongoing expansion, we may have missed something: the fundamental transformation of whole firms and industries into giant information-processing machines. Today, more than eighty percent of workers collect and analyze information (often in digital form) in the course of doing their jobs. This book offers a guide to the role of information in modern business, mapping the use of information within work processes and tracing flows of information across supply-chain management, product development, customer relations, and sales. The emphasis is on information itself, not on information technology. Information, overshadowed for a while by the glamour and novelty of IT, is the fundamental component of the modern corporation. In Information and the Modern Corporation, longtime IBM manager and consultant James Cortada clarifies the differences among data, facts, information, and knowledge and describes how the art of analytics has all but eliminated decision making based on gut feeling, replacing it with fact-based decisions. He describes the working style of "road warriors," whose offices are anywhere their laptops and cell phones are and whose deep knowledge of a given topic becomes their medium of exchange. Information is the core of the modern enterprise, and the use of information defines the activities of a firm. This essential guide shows managers and employees better ways to leverage information--by design and not by accident.

"From Richard Tedlow's insightful group portrait of seven American entrepreneurs...a rough formula for titanhood can be deduced." (Atlantic Monthly )^"Tedlow's 'passionate and fluid writing' makes Giants of Enterprise a pleasure to read." (Business Week )^"Tedlow's mastery as a historian.takes us to the heart of what is unique about the American economy." (Michael E. PorterBishop William Lawrence University ProfessorHarvard Business School )^One of the top ten business books of 2001 (Business Week )