{"product_id":"data-empire-how-information-shaped-human-history-9781911709824","title":"Data Empire: How Information Shaped Human History","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis groundbreaking 11,000 year history argues that empire was never just about weapons or ships - it was built on collecting information on us, to rule us. Perfect for readers of Nexus and The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.   We live in an era when trading our information for access can feel harmless or inevitable - yet from targeted advertising to mass surveillance, data shapes the course of our lives. How did it gain the power it now holds over us?  Long before writing existed, at the dawn of civilisation in Mesopotamia, rulers pressed marks into clay to keep track of land, people and grain. To rule, they had to keep count. It is no accident, then, that the first written name in human history was neither a god nor a king, but an accountant. As ships and navigation expanded our horizons, a new age of European empires took control of more than 80 per cent of the world's surface, using colonial censuses, maps and ledgers to decide who belonged, who owed, and who could be sacrificed. Today, a handful of private brokers increasingly define what we see and what is real.  Taking readers from ancient cave markings and knotted strings to the algorithmic state, Dartmouth professor Roopika Risam reveals how data has always been the seed of power: a technology of control that has shaped civilizations and upheld empires. Provocative, humane and sweeping in scope, Data Empire challenges us to decide whether we will allow a new set of data empires to hardwire inequality into the next century, or fight for systems that work for the benefit of all.\u003ch4\u003eDetails\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003cp\u003eISBN13: 9781911709824\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFormat: Paperback \/ softback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNumber of Pages: 480\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEdition: \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePublication Date: 13 Oct 2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePublisher: Transworld Publishers Ltd\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePublication City, Country: United Kingdom\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDimensions (cm): 23.3(H)x15.5(L)x3.8(W)578\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWeight (gm): 578\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch4\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h4\u003eRoopika Risam is Professor of Digital Humanities and Social Engagement, and Provost Leadership Fellow for AI Strategy at Dartmouth. Her research explores how histories of race, empire, and technology shape the modern world. She is the author of New Digital Worlds: Postcolonial Digital Humanities in Theory, Praxis, and Pedagogy, taught in over 150 universities worldwide, and co-editor of four collections, including Anti-Racist Community Engagement and The Digital Black Atlantic. Risam is past president of the Association for Computers and the Humanities, the U.S. scholarly organization for digital research in the humanities.\u003ch4\u003eReviews\u003c\/h4\u003eFrom the earliest inscriptions, through the record-keeping of the Han dynasty or the Domesday book, to the modern world of the internet and AI, Risam demonstrates how \u003cb\u003edata has both controlled and liberated us and so moulded the human story\u003c\/b\u003e. \u003cb\u003eBreathtaking in its scope and enormously fulfilling in its depth\u003c\/b\u003e, this book is \u003cb\u003eprofoundly fascinating\u003c\/b\u003e. -- Professor Lewis Dartnell, author of Being Human\u003cbr\u003eHere is \u003cb\u003ethe new history of mankind demanded by our times.\u003c\/b\u003e We can understand our past, going all the way back to our emergence as a species, as a struggle over data. Data used to turn into power through intermediates like money and politics, but now it does so more directly. Humanity was forced to enact reforms to make money and politics survivable. \u003cb\u003eThis book asks what we will do about data now that we have no choice but to do something.\u003c\/b\u003e -- Jaron Lanier, computer scientist, founder of Virtual Reality and author of Who Owns the Future?\u003cbr\u003eA \u003cb\u003epowerful and thought-provoking\u003c\/b\u003e deep history of data and power, \u003cb\u003eessential reading\u003c\/b\u003e for understanding the opportunities and dangers of the technological revolution now transforming our world. -- Dr Jonathan Kennedy, author of Pathogenesis\u003cbr\u003eThis \u003cb\u003ebrilliant, readable book\u003c\/b\u003e offers a striking new historical perspective on accountants and number-crunchers, demonstrating the extent to which \u003cb\u003edata has shaped and controlled people’s lives across centuries and continents\u003c\/b\u003e. -- Professor Corinne Fowler, author of Our Island Stories\u003cbr\u003eA \u003cb\u003etimely and ambitious\u003c\/b\u003e history of humanity’s oldest technology: keeping track. For millennia, humans have counted and recorded the world – first with pebbles, notched bones, and cave art, later with ledgers, censuses, and now algorithms. \u003ci\u003eData Empire\u003c\/i\u003e traces how these practices became instruments of power, shaping trade, governance, and the fate of entire populations. \u003cb\u003eA compelling, highly readable account of data’s often unseen influence on our lives\u003c\/b\u003e. -- Professor Brooke N. Newman, author of The Crown’s Silence\u003cbr\u003eData is everywhere – and has been for over 67,000 years. In \u003ci\u003eData Empire, \u003c\/i\u003eRoopika Risam\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eretells the \u003cb\u003eepic, tragic, and triumphal stories of how humans generated data to encode and organize their worlds\u003c\/b\u003e. Risam explores information as a powerful tool, one that can help us to recover historical memories or deliver “engines of control” into the hands of Silicon Valley tech firms. From Palaeolithic cave paintings to ancient shipwrecks to Mesoamerican calendars to ICE raids: every age is presented with choices about their data. \u003ci\u003eData Empire\u003c\/i\u003e demonstrates that \u003cb\u003ewe are not beholden to the stories that corporations wish to tell or sell about us.\u003c\/b\u003e We can choose to \u003cb\u003eresist and to take back our data \u003c\/b\u003e– \u003cb\u003eif we work together\u003c\/b\u003e. -- Professor Sarah E. Bond, author of Strike\u003cbr\u003eProfessor Risam’s \u003ci\u003eData Empire \u003c\/i\u003eoffers \u003cb\u003efascinating perspectives on data’s role in classifying persons, controlling resources, and hardening hierarchies.\u003c\/b\u003e Her \u003ci\u003elongue duree\u003c\/i\u003e history – from King Sargon to cybernetics – puts record-keeping at centre stage. As Risam argues, far from being the mere residue of events, data often shapes and sparks them. Read this book both to enjoy her \u003cb\u003ecaptivating historical narrative\u003c\/b\u003e, and to bring \u003cb\u003ea fresh new perspective to current debates on privacy and AI.\u003c\/b\u003e -- Professor Frank Pasquale, author of The Black Box Society and New Laws of Robotics\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWhat if the story of data is the story of humanity?\u003c\/b\u003e In a work of \u003cb\u003eenormous erudition\u003c\/b\u003e, Risam guides readers across continents and centuries to reach a sobering conclusion: \u003cb\u003edata is us – our societies, our cultures, our futures – and we are ceding control to an unaccountable few.\u003c\/b\u003e -- Dr Dan Bouk, author of Democracy’s Data\u003cbr\u003eRoopika Risam has let data's story unfurl over centuries and across continents. The result is something \u003cb\u003eprofound,\u003c\/b\u003e a chance to \u003cb\u003esee how our current moment of LLMs and data brokers and ubiquitous surveillance sits in the bigger story of human history. This is an essential book.\u003c\/b\u003e -- Jer Thorp, author of Living in Data\u003cbr\u003eIf \u003cb\u003edata is the new oil\u003c\/b\u003e, then Roopika Risam’s \u003ci\u003eData Empire\u003c\/i\u003e can stand next to Daniel Yergin’s epic history of oil, \u003ci\u003eThe Prize\u003c\/i\u003e as a fascinating tale of \u003cb\u003ehow data slowly became the most consequential commodity in our world.\u003c\/b\u003e -- Jonathan Taplin, author of Move Fast and Break Things and The End of Reality","brand":"Roopika Risam","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50735557804249,"sku":"9781911709824","price":36.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0502\/9530\/8441\/files\/9781911709824.jpg?v=1792168704","url":"https:\/\/www.arielbooks.com.au\/products\/data-empire-how-information-shaped-human-history-9781911709824","provider":"Ariel","version":"1.0","type":"link"}