Research Catalog

Title

The boy who could change the world : the writings of Aaron Swartz / Aaron Swartz ; with an introduction by Lawrence Lessig.

Author

Swartz, Aaron, 1986-2013

Publication

• New York : The New Press, 2015.
• ©2015

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Lessig, Lawrence

Description

vii, 359 pages; 21 cm

Summary

"In his too-short life, Aaron Swartz reshaped the Internet, questioned our assumptions about intellectual property, and touched all of us in ways that we may not even realize. His tragic suicide in 2013 at the age of twenty-six after being aggressively prosecuted for copyright infringement shocked the nation and the world. Here for the first time in print is revealed the quintessential Aaron Swartz: besides being a technical genius and a passionate activist, he was also an insightful, compelling, and cutting essayist. With a technical understanding of the Internet and of intellectual property law surpassing that of many seasoned professionals, he wrote thoughtfully and humorously about intellectual property, copyright, and the architecture of the Internet. He wrote as well about unexpected topics such as pop culture, politics both electoral and idealistic, dieting, and lifehacking. Including three in-depth and previously unpublished essays about education, governance, and cities,The Boy Who Could Change the World contains the life's work of one of the most original minds of our time"--

Alternative Title

Writings of Aaron Swartz

Subject

• Swartz, Aaron, 1986-2013 > Political and social views
• Internet > Social aspects
• Internet > Political aspects
• Intellectual property
• Copyright
• Computers > Social aspects
• Computer architecture
• Political culture > United States
• Popular culture > United States
• LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Essays
• COMPUTERS / Internet / General

Genre/Form

Essays

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

• Free culture / introduction by Benjamin Mako Hill and Seth Schoen. Counterpoint : downloading isn't stealing ; UTI interview with Aaron Swartz ; Jefferson : nature wants to be free ; Guerilla open access manifesto ; The fruits of mass collaboration ; The techniques of mass collaboration : a third way out ; Wikimedia at the crossroads ; Who writes Wikipedia? ; Who runs Wikipedia? ; Making more Wikipedians ; Making more Wikipedias ; Code, and other laws of Wikipedia ; False outliers ; (The dandy Warhols) come down ; Up with facts : finding the truth in WikiCourt ; Welcome, Watchdog.net ; A database of folly ; When is transparency useful? ; How we stopped SOPA --^
• Computers / introduction by David Auerbach. Excerpt : a programmable web ; Privacy, accuracy, security : pick two ; Fixing compulsory licensing ; Postel's law has no exceptions ; Squaring the triangle : secure, decentralized, human-readable names ; Release late, release rarely ; Bake, don't fry ; Building baked sites ; A brief history of Ajax ; djb ; A non-programmer's apology -- Politics / introduction by David Segal. How Congress works ; Keynes, explained briefly ; Toward a larger left ; Professional politicians beware! ; The attraction of the center ; The conservative nanny state ; Political entrepreneurs and lunatics with money ; Postscript by Henry Farrell --^
• Media / introduction by Cory Doctorow. The book that changed my life ; The invention of objectivity ; Shifting the terms of debate : how big business covered up global warming ; Making noise : how right-wing think tanks get the word out ; Endorsing racism : the story of The Bell Curve ; Spreading lies : how think tanks ignore the facts ; Saving business : the origins of right-wing think tanks ; Hurting seniors : the attack on Social Security ; Fighting back : responses to the mainstream media ; What journalists don't : lessons from the Times ; Rachel Carson : mass murderer? ; Is undercover over? Disguise seen as deceit by timid journalists -- Books and culture / introduction by James Grimmelmann. Recommended books ; Guest review by Aaron Swartz : Chris Hayes' The Twilight of the Elites ; Freakonomics ; The immorality of freakonomics ; In offense of classical music ; A unified theory of magazines ; On intellectual dishonesty ; The smalltalk question --^
• Unschool / introduction by Astra Taylor. School ; Welcome to unschooling ; School rules ; The writings of John Holt ; Apprentice education ; Intellectual diversity at Stanford ; David Horowitz on academic freedom ; What it means to be an intellectual ; Getting it wrong.

ISBN

• 9781620970669
• 162097066X
• 9781620970768 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

^^2015008414

OCLC

• 891619007
• SCSB-11255897

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library