The Closed World

472 Pages·1996·89.44 MB·English

by  Paul N. Edwards

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THE CLOSED WORLD
Computers and the Politics of
Discourse in Cold War America
§ PAUL EDWARDS
The Closed World offers a radical alternative to
the canonical histories of computers and cognitive
science. Arguing that we can make sense of
computers as tools only when we simultaneously
grasp their roles as metaphors and political icons,
Paul Edwards shows how Cold War social
and cultural contexts shaped emerging computer
technology — and were transformed, in turn,
by information machines.
The Closed World explores three apparently dis¬
parate histories — the history of American global
power, the history of computing machines, and
the history of subjectivity in science and culture —
through the lens of the American political imagina¬
tion. In the process, it reveals intimate links among
the military projects of the Cold War, the evolution
of digital computers, and the origins of cybernetics,
cognitive psychology, and artificial intelligence.
Edwards begins by describing the emergence of
a “closed-world discourse" of global surveillance
and control through high-technology military power.
The Cold War political goal of “containment" led
to the SAGE continental air defense system, Rand
Corporation studies of nuclear strategy, and the
advanced technologies of the Vietnam War
B
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The Closed World
i
Inside Technology
edited by Wiebe E. Bijker, W. Bernard Carlson, and Trevor Pinch
Wiebe E. Bijker, Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs: Toward a Theory
of Sociotechnical Change
Wiebe E. Bijker and John Law, editors, Shaping Technology/Building Society:
Studies in Sociotechnical Change
Stuart S. Blume, Insight and Industry: On the Dynamics of Technological Change
in Medicine
Louis L. Bucciarelli, Designing Engineers
Geoffrey C. Bowker, Science on the Run: Information Management and Industrial
Geophysics at Schlumberger, 1920-1940
H. M. Collins, Artificial Experts: Social Knowledge and Intelligent Machines
Paul N. Edwards, The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse
in Cold War America
Pamela E. Mack, Viewing the Earth: The Social Construction of the Landsat
Satellite System
Donald MacKenzie, Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear
Missile Guidance
Donald MacKenzie, Knowing Machines: Essays on Technical Change
The Closed World
Computers and the Politics of Discourse in
Cold War America
Paul N. Edwards
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
©1996 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or
by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording,
or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the
publisher.
This book was set in Baskerville by Pine Tree Composition, Inc. and printed
and bound in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Edwards, Paul N.
The closed world : computers and the politics of discourse in Cold
War America / Paul N. Edwards
p. cm.—(Inside technology)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-262-05051-X (alk. paper)
1. Computers—History. 2. Military art and science—Data
processing—History. I. Title. II. Series.
QA76. 17.E34 1996
306.2—dc20 95-24674
CIP
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