New Books in Science, Technology, and Society

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society

Release Date

Latest Episode

Roland Betancourt, "Disneyland and the Rise of Automation: How Technology Created the Happiest Place on Earth" (Princeton UP, 2026)

When Disneyland opened to the public in 1955, it demystified the hidden world of factory automation through its extraordinary new attractions. In Disneyland and the Rise of Automation: How Technology Created the Happiest Place on Earth (Princeton University Press, 2026), Dr. Rola ...  Show more

All Episodes

Roland Betancourt, "Disneyland and the Rise of Automation: How Technology Created the Happiest Place on Earth" (Princeton UP, 2026)

When Disneyland opened to the public in 1955, it demystified the hidden world of factory automation through its extraordinary new attractions. In Disneyland and the Rise of Automation: How Technology Created the Happiest Place on Earth (Princeton University Press, 2026), Dr. Rola ...  Show more

Sarah Murray, "Powered by Smart: A Prehistory of Everyday AI" (NYU Press, 2026)

Powered by Smart traces the techno-cultural evolutions that made artificial intelligence feel more familiar than futuristic. From wearables and streaming platforms to home voice assistants and AI toasters, smart is an inescapable feature of postdigital life. Today, thousands of p ...  Show more

The Information State: How is the State Surveilling and Manipulating us These Days?

In this episode of International Horizons, RBI Acting Director Eli Karetny interviews Jacob Siegel, writer, Army veteran, and author of The Information State. Siegel traces how military information operations, post‑9/11 surveillance programs, and Silicon Valley’s rise converged t ...  Show more

David Blumenthal and James A. Morone, "Whiplash: From the Battle for Obamacare to the War on Science" (Yale UP, 2026)

For nearly a century, every Democratic president—and many Republicans—entered office promising to restructure America’s health care system. Barack Obama finally broke through but, in the process, opened a tumultuous decade in which battles over health care dominated American poli ...  Show more

Adrian Woolfson, "On the Future of Species: Authoring Life by Means of Artificial Biological Intelligence" (MIT Press, 2026)

Imagine a future where we grow houses rather than build them. Where smartphones are alive, clothing has opinions and all human knowledge fits into a speck of DNA. A world where disease is a thing of the past and the human lifespan is dramatically extended.To achieve this, says Ad ...  Show more