Melissa Adler

Surveillance in the Empire of Liberty (eBook, ePUB)

Why Thomas Jefferson Matters in Our Information Age

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Examines the formation of a surveillance state through a close examination of Thomas Jefferson's plantation management techniques and political actions.

With the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on the horizon, Melissa Adler leads readers to reexamine the principles and foundations upon which the United States is based. By analyzing Thomas Jefferson's surveillance technologies and practices, including his Farm Book, algorithmic formulas, and land management policies, this book provides a new understanding of the limits to aspirations toward good government, liberty, security, and equality in the United States. In addition to being the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, which famously states that "all men are created equal," many of Jefferson's writings feature the rationalization of the enslavement, displacement, and killing of Black and Indigenous peoples. Adler argues that information architectures are mechanisms by which cultural and political divisions endure, and that close examination of Jefferson's surveillance techniques reveals some of the processes by which problems associated with settler colonialism, racism, and heteropatriarchy have become systemic.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury eBooks US
• Seitenzahl: 274
• Erscheinungstermin: 22. Januar 2026
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9798765145609
• Artikelnr.: 76104561

Autorenporträt

Melissa Adler is Associate Professor and Graduate Program Chair for Media Studies and Library & Information Science at Western University, Canada.

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction
Part 1: Mastery
1. "Your Father, the President"
2. The intimacy of Encryption
Part 2: Informing
3. Literacy Education in the Early Republic
4. Delivering the News
Part 3: Informationalization
5. Monticello in the Field of Vision
6. Revolutionary Algorithms
Coda