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Honest review · Character
The Infernal Machine
by Steven Johnson
Dynamite, anarchists and the birth of modern surveillance and forensics in 1900s New York. Johnson on how terror created the detective state.
Read it if…
you want the origins of policing technology.
See the book →
Skip it if…
you want a narrower crime story.
Try instead: Create Your Own Economy →
Three things you will actually use
- Technology provokes countertechnology.
- Surveillance has origins.
- Systems respond to shocks.
Do this first
Read the chapters on the bomb squad.
Our verdict
Johnson's anarchists.
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