Jason Crawford Book Recommendations & Book Mentions
This list consists of recommendations or mentions of books spotted in media, social media accounts, podcasts or other public websites.
Jason Crawford on X
Founder, @rootsofprogress. I write about the history of technology and the philosophy of progress. Part-time consultant to @OurWorldInData. Former tech founder

Leninism: Volume One
Joseph Stalin
The answer, which a few people got, is Joseph Stalin, writing on “The Foundations of Leninism” in *Pravda* in April 1924. (Those who guessed Lenin get partial credit.) https://t.co/BhD6qmUPum
Paperback, 2019
$44.99$22.50 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Cybernetics: Second Edition: Or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine
Norbert Wiener
Norbert Wiener, creator of “cybernetics,” was concerned about machine alignment problems in the 1960s. Good find from @arbesman: https://t.co/X2WVnu1E2T
Hardcover, 2021
$18.50$9.25 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air: Volume 2
David Jc MacKay
@juliadewahl @ShaneMarcheson David MacKay's *Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air* has a good discussion of pumped storage https://t.co/plJmze0lb2
Out of stock

The Pivot of Civilization: Birth Control
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger's incredible resilience and commitment to the cause of birth control. She opened the first birth-control clinic in the US in 1916—and lived long enough to see the Pill approved for use in the US in 1960, when she was 80 years old (!) https://t.co/qkQ0BDfrOA
Paperback, 2018
$8.95$4.47 + Free shipping50% off your first book
More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave
Ruth Schwartz Cowan
@EdKPyros That is not the opinion of Ruth Cowan Schwartz, author of *More Work for Mother*, quoted above. She says the domestic service jobs were terrible, people were treated badly, and they eagerly took factory jobs instead.
Paperback, 1985
$22.99$11.49 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing Before Cybernetics
David A. Mindell
2. Around WW1, Elmer Sperry invented an analog computer for the navy called the “battle tracer” (Diagram from David A. Mindell, Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing Before Cybernetics) https://t.co/XDYEuNtO2s
Paperback, 2004
$37.00$18.50 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Erewhon
Samuel Butler
Have any of you read Samuel Butler's *Erewhon* (1872)? I picked it up expecting a sci-fi dystopia, but it turns out to be political satire. Very amusing, but I could use some exegesis
Hardcover, 2008
$21.99$10.99 + Free shipping50% off your first book
On Liberty
John Stuart Mill
“Many great books appeared in 1859 – Darwin’s *Origin of Species*, Edward Fitzgerald’s *Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam*, and John Stuart Mill’s *On Liberty* come to mind – but *Self-Help* outsold them all by far.” https://t.co/bGTiRDMsQE
Paperback, 2002
$6.00$3.00 + Free shipping50% off your first book
American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm, 1870-1970
Thomas P. Hughes
h/t to @antonhowes for the first, and Thomas Hughes (American Genesis) for the second
Paperback, 2004
$34.00$17.00 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Arrowsmith: Pulitzer Prize Winner
Sinclair Lewis
It's fascinating that phages are becoming important, because in the 1920s and early '30s, before there were broadly effective antibiotics, phages looked like they might be the thing that would fight bacteria. This was the discovery of the doctor in Sinclair Lewis's *Arrowsmith*
Paperback, Mass Market, 2008
$7.95$3.97 + Free shipping50% off your first book