Research Catalog

Title

The government machine : a revolutionary history of the computer / Jon Agar.

Author

Agar, Jon.

Publication

Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 2003.

Items in the Library & Off-site

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

• Public administration > Great Britain > Data processing > History
• Computers > Government policy > Great Britain > History
• Civil service > Effect of technological innovations on > Great Britain > History

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.

Connect to:

Table of contents

Research Call Number

JSE 04-41