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3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
Modern data science in the age of Mad Men? Who knew? The book is somewhat frightening in the correlations of then and now. We clearly didn’t learn the lessons of this history, because we had forgotten it.
i think i was like 28% through this book and then my libby checkout expired. i want a hard copy, this book slaps, the amount of history and detail and... yeah. this is how non-fiction history is supposed to be written.
edit: on second thought, maybe there is a little too much unnecessary detail that detracts from the main point. ok this but minus a few thousand words
edit: on second thought, maybe there is a little too much unnecessary detail that detracts from the main point. ok this but minus a few thousand words
This book took too much of a divergence from the company itself to plug their personal opinions of the decisions made through the political background.
Despite agreeing or disagreeing with their stance, it was not well placed in a book designed to be an unbiased historical story. Will learn about the company elsewhere
Despite agreeing or disagreeing with their stance, it was not well placed in a book designed to be an unbiased historical story. Will learn about the company elsewhere
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
I really wanted to like this book but:
- I expected there would be more about Simulmatics itself and more scientific/technical background of their 'product', however, I received a history book with too many anecdotes and suddenly appearing names (in bulks)
- connected to the one above, as it ended up being a bad historical textbook, it was often hard to understand the described situations and people without previous more than basic knowledge of the US history and political system
- I listened to the audiobook narrated by the author and it was one of the worst narration experiences I had - the exaggerated voices of the described characters were breaking the flow constantly...
- based on my reading experience and the author's conclusion, I am unsure if there is really a story to tell about Simulmatics... At least not one so long...
In summary, I was very close to dnfing it, I am not sure how I managed... So, unless you would like to read a piece of the US history in a patchwork version, better stay away from this book.
- I expected there would be more about Simulmatics itself and more scientific/technical background of their 'product', however, I received a history book with too many anecdotes and suddenly appearing names (in bulks)
- connected to the one above, as it ended up being a bad historical textbook, it was often hard to understand the described situations and people without previous more than basic knowledge of the US history and political system
- I listened to the audiobook narrated by the author and it was one of the worst narration experiences I had - the exaggerated voices of the described characters were breaking the flow constantly...
- based on my reading experience and the author's conclusion, I am unsure if there is really a story to tell about Simulmatics... At least not one so long...
In summary, I was very close to dnfing it, I am not sure how I managed... So, unless you would like to read a piece of the US history in a patchwork version, better stay away from this book.
slow-paced
I hate to say it as I've really enjoyed Lepore's previous work, but - she really did not deliver on her thesis. Alas.
slow-paced
How can I describe this... This book at what it pitches to be about..is not in my opinion the focus. The book meanders back and forth between political history and the actual titular Simulmatics corporation. Too often in this book does it go on about the political history and not into the philosophy, creation, and background of the corporation. I know more about the JFK, Addley Stevenson, and Eisenhower campaigns, than I do about what the hell Simulmatics was about and how it grew. I could easily see another author being able to wrangle the topics into something that is more engaging, and focused more about the growth and power of the company and what it was attempting. Instead there's this tepid, luke warm retelling of events with the ever so slight sprinkling of Simulmatics on top.
The book continues to read more like a flaccid attempt to cover what could have been a really interesting think piece on the reasoning and logic of Simulmatics, what it meant..drawing correlations to modern day data storage. Instead the book veers so far afield, I quickly get lost in whatever other narrative she's talking about at any time. Currently we're reliving the assassinatino of JFK in detail, with absolutely no ties to how this relates to the Simulmatics Corp. This book is like someone who was given a writing assignment, had no idea how to fill 300 pages of content, so they padded the ever loving typeset out of it. Going on benders about any historical event in the 50's and 60's and 70's and lightly sprinkling in whatever scraps of knowledge they dug up on Simulmatics. The book could have dived into the philosophy of who owns data, what it means to house it, the morale implications, how it affects world events up to the modern day, how the company worked etc.. This book gives you none of this, and orbits around this scattered narrative of political events, never tying back to the company in question.
And I know I said up top, I won't let the narration color my review, but while I'm a roll here, the narrator has this blood boiling habit and raising her voice up to some mock 1950's news reporter accent which just sounds inane and silly. It removes any seriousness from what she's reading.
The very last portion of the book ends in what I was hoping this entire book would have focused on. The author seems to make a mad scramble, as if she remembered the thesis of the book, and crams a bunch of topical information and idea's our way, but it's too little too late. The book lost the focus of this so many times and never capitalized on making any of it the point of focus. I felt like any discussion of Simulmatics was hindsight, secondary and a big "oh by the way".
I gleaned nothing from this book except the idea that it existed, it did tests for the JFK election, and riots..and that it didn't stick around long. All context and importance was dragged through the mud and compeletely lost.