Data Empire

BARACK OBAMA'S 2026 SUMMER READING PICK An NPR, New Scientist, Nautilus, and Next Big Idea Club Best Book of the Month ';Here is the new history of mankind demanded by our times.' Jaron Lanier, author of Who Owns the Future? ';A must-read.'NPR, ';15 Books Our Critics Can't Wait to Read This Summer' ';Essential reading for understanding the opportunities and dangers of the technological revolution now transforming our world.' Jonathan Kennedy, author of Pathogenesis From clay tablets to the algorithmic state, a groundbreaking new lens on human history arguing that information has always been the seed of power, for readers of Nexus and The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. Long before writing existed, at the dawn of civilization 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