Book: Here Comes Everybody
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky
My review
rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is the best book I’ve ever read on the intersection of anthropology and the internet. Shirky has tremendous powers of observation, and his text is unencumbered by societal norms and restrictions. As is written on the front book cover, “Revolution doesn’t happen when society adopts new technology, it happens when society adopts new behaviors.”
The book tackles several coordination, cooperation and publish then filter scenarios via in depth analysis of real world events. And as with the profound statement on revolution from the book cover, the examples lead with the interpersonal aspects; the tools (Wikipedia, Flickr, Linux, Livejournal, Facebook) are shown, sometimes to show how they supported the interpersonal aspects, sometimes to show how they enabled them to happen in the first place.
I thoroughly enjoyed this enlightening, if sometimes a bit dense text. The updated epilogue talks about how unincorporated groups in today’s society are still somewhat powerless when compared to businesses, and suggests that the coming months and years will see experimentation on bridging that gap.
If you work on the internet, or are interested in the digital age and its tools, or even anthropology regardless of its intersection with technology, this book is worth a read.
