Friday, November 13, 2020

If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future

 


In Jill Lepore’s If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future, we learn of a data collection company which anticipated, in many ways, our current era of Big Data.  Lepore does an excellent job of showing how the scientists at Simulmatics were ahead of their time, and although formal failures in most of the tasks they set to predict, showed the path to the future.

Yet the book is underwhelming at many points.  Lepore is not consist in showing her interest and enthusiasm in telling in the topic.  When parts like these occur in the book, I wondered why I should be interested as well.   The Vietnam section  is far too long for the payout.  The book would have been better served, I believe, if it was shorter.  This way, the author could have maintained her interest in the topic she wants us to read enough to write a book. 


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