Cultures of Control (Electronic book text)

This collection of essays explores the history of control by looking at a variety of cultural forms, practices and beliefs. These ideas are examined critically, not only in the light of the possibilities which control technologies seem to offer for resolving human problems, but also the contradictory moral, political and economic consequences they have had. The discussion takes into account the important modes in which humans have cast their organizational efforts - political, social, psychological, economic and legal. It also takes a "longue duree" view of the history of control, looking back to the 18th and 19th centuries, and establishes the continuities in the 20th century as a transatlantic phenomenon.