The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era

Lots of options out there. A few from my bookshelf: Bijker's "Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs" is a case-study-centric work that seeks to build a general theory of STS. Nye's "Technology Matters" is less a work of theory than a critique that poses core questions about how society should seek to integrate technical advances. Latour's "Science in Action," "Reassembling the Social," and "Aramis" are great examples of his approach to whole-of-system analysis of sociotechnical systems. Rogers' "Diffusion of Innovation" is a classic work theorizing how innovation is communicated through social networks. MIT Press has a wide variety of books that cover specific topics in history, most of which have great theoretic interest: Agar's "The Government Machine," dealing with the evolution of technology and expertise within the UK government; Medina's "Cybernetic Revolutionaries," about Beer's Cybersyn project; and Ensmenger's "The Computer Boys Take Over," about the cultural development of the "programmer," are all great reads.…