New Books in Science, Technology, and Society

Why does the American flag use stars to represent the states? In The Star-Spangled Republic: Political Astronomy and the Rise of the American Constellation (U Virginia Press, 2025), Eran Shalev answers this and many other questions, considering the cosmic imagery—so familiar to ...  Show more

Why does the American flag use stars to represent the states? In The Star-Spangled Republic: Political Astronomy and the Rise of the American Constellation (U Virginia Press, 2025), Eran Shalev answers this and many other questions, considering the cosmic imagery—so familiar to ...  Show more

Steve Feldstein's Bytes and Bullets: Global Rivalries, Private Tech, and the New Shape of Modern Warfare (St. Martin's Press, 2026) opens with a juxtaposition: China spending vast sums to reach the far side of the moon, and Ukraine using cheap drones to blunt a far larger militar ...  Show more

In Democracy in Power: A History of Electrification in the United States (University of Chicago Press, 2024), Sandeep Vaheesan recounts the rather overlooked story of how electricity spread across the U.S. economy during the 20th century. This book sheds careful light on the vari ...  Show more

In the early nineteenth century, the French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed the first evolutionary theory of life and, with it, a new science: biology. Yet for centuries, evolutionary theorists have endeavored to discredit Lamarck and his theory of self-transforming org ...  Show more

Does it seem like the business world is in its own version of an arms race to figure out AI? It’s a moment when even a little wisdom, grounded in experience and expertise, provides relief. But how do you get that wisdom? If you’re KPMG, you turn to your own secret weapon, Stephan ...  Show more