The Cybernetics Moment

"Nowhere in the burgeoning secondary literature on cybernetics in the last two decades is there a concise history of cybernetics, the science of communication and control that helped usher in the current information age in America. Nowhere, that is, until now... Readers have in The Cybernetics Moment the first authoritative history of American cybernetics."

"[A]n extremely interesting and stimulating history of the concepts of cybernetics... This is a book for everyone to read, relish, and think about."

"As a whole, the book presents a comprehensive in-depth retrospective analysis of the contribution of the American scientific school to the making, formation, and development of cybernetics and information theory. An unquestionable advantage of the book is the skillful use of numerous bibliographic sources by the author that reflect the scientific, engineering, and social significance of the questions being considered, competition of ideas and developments, and also interrelations between scientists."

"Dr. Kline is perhaps uniquely situated to take on so large and complicated [a] topic as cybernetics... Readers unfamiliar with Wiener and his work are well advised to start with this well-written and thorough book. Those who are already familiar will still find much that is new and informative in the thorough research and reasoned interpretations."

"The most comprehensive intellectual history of cybernetics in Cold War America."

"The book will be most valuable as historical background for the large number of disciplines that were involved in the cybernetics moment: computer science, communications engineering, information theory, and the social sciences of sociology and anthropology."

"Ronald Kline’s chronicle of cybernetics certainly does what an excellent history of science should do. It takes you there—to the golden age of a new, exciting field. You will almost smell that cigar."

"Kline’s The Cybernetics Moment tracks the rise and fall of the cybernetics movement in more detail than any historical account to date."

"Kline does a valuable service tracing the contrasting fates of cybernetics and information theory."

"... The knowledge offered in The Cybernetics Moment will greatly contribute to any reader seeking an enhanced or more comprehensive understanding of our present-day discourse surrounding information, while also providing a detailed and well-warranted history of the science of cybernetics."

"After reading his book, it is impossible to ignore the contribution that cybernetics has made to computational models and techniques used in numerous academic disciplines, and to how so many of these disciplines— from biology and engineering to social sciences and the humanities—operated even in quantitative and social history. With The Cybernetics Moment, Kline has moved cybernetics out of the shadows of intellectual history into the limelight."

"... valuable addition to the history of cybernetics..."

"This is a book certain to become an instant classic for historians working in the increasingly broad range of scientific and technological disciplines over which the cybernetics moment has cast its long shadow."

"... Kline's book presents an invaluable resource that sheds light on the conceptual foundations of some of the most convincing investigations of interactions between human civilization and planetary ecologies."

"This is a book certain to become an instant classic for historians working in the increasingly broad range of scientific and technological disciplines over which the cybernetics moment has cast its long shadow."

"The Cybernetics Moment, offers more than a compelling history of complex ways in which one specific field shaped today’s "information age." Kline’s book also contributes to a broader interdisciplinary argument for the practice (and importance) of rigorous discursive exchange between, on the one hand, rhetoric, media, public perception, and the humanities, and on the other, the world of the applied sciences, mathematics, computers, and technology."

"The Cybernetics Moment is an in-depth study of the field of cybernetics. It is also a useful case study of how researchers clarify the questions and boundaries of a field, offering an explanation for the success of information theory and the relative lack of success for cybernetics. Finally, for scholars studying the social implications of computing, algorithms, and automation, this book offers a look at some of the first formulations of those questions and how they were dealt with at the dawn of the information age."

"The Cybernetics Moment relies on a deep and thorough mining of primary historical sources, coupled with a broad and contextual review of the secondary historical literature and an appropriate level of attention to related popular culture narratives. With both a historian's attention to detail and contingency and a sociologist's understanding of discourse and meaning, Kline demonstrates in this rich story that there is more than we thought behind the decades-long adoption of computational models, techniques, and visions by the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities."