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The government machine : a revolutionary history of the computer

Title
The government machine : a revolutionary history of the computer / Jon Agar.
Author
Agar, Jon.
Publication
Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 2003.

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Details

Description
viii, 554 pages : illustrations; 24 cm
Summary
  • "In The Government Machine Jon Agar traces the mechanization of government work in the United Kingdom from the nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. He argues that this transformation has been tied to the rise of "expert movements," groups whose authority has rested on their expertise. The deployment of machines was an attempt to gain control over state action - a revolutionary move.
  • Agar shows how mechanization followed the popular depiction of government as machine-like, with British civil servants cast as components of a general-purpose "government machine"; indeed, he argues that today's general-purpose computer is the apotheosis of the civil servant."--Jacket.
Series Statement
History of computing
Uniform Title
History of computing.
Subjects
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (pages 433-533) and index.
Contents
The state of knowledge -- The machineries of government -- "The parent of a totally different order of things" : Charles Trevelyan and the civil service as machine -- "Chaotic England" and the organized world : official statistics and expert statisticians -- "One universal register" : fantasies and realities of total knowledge -- The office machinery of government -- An information war -- The military machine? -- Treasury organization and methods and the computerization of government work -- Privacy and distrust -- Computers and experts in the hollowed-out state, 1970-2000.
Call Number
JSE 04-41
ISBN
  • 0262012022
  • 9780262012027
  • 9780262533881 (pbk.)
  • 026253388X (pbk.)
LCCN
2003042121
OCLC
51534863
Author
Agar, Jon.
Title
The government machine : a revolutionary history of the computer / Jon Agar.
Imprint
Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 2003.
Type of Content
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Series
History of computing
History of computing.
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 433-533) and index.
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Research Call Number
JSE 04-41
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