Drone (Object Lessons) by Adam Rothstein

Object Lessons

by Adam Rothstein

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Drones are in the newspaper, on the TV screen, swarming through the networks, and soon, we're told, they'll be delivering our shopping. But what are drones? The word encompasses everything from toys to weapons. And yet, as broadly defined as they are, the word “drone” fills many of us with a sense of technological dread. Adam Rothstein cuts through the mystery, the unknown, and the political posturing, and talks about what drones really what technologies are out there, and what's coming next; how drones are talked about, and how they are represented in popular culture.It turns out that drones are not as scary as they appear-but they are more complicated than you might expect. Drones reveal the strange relationships that humans are forming with their new technologies.Object Lesson is published in partnership with an essay series in the The Atlantic.

Genres: Nonfiction

Paperback

First published December 18, 2014

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't think this book is well-researched. It is a term paper style with a bunch of holes. There were enough blind spots and tropes at play that I've decided to stop reading this book and instead to read everything cited by this book, plus another book called Drone Theory by Chamayou to understand the drone. To give some examples of the lack of journalistic or academic rigor in this book by Rothstein: on page 10 "the ENIAC could not store programs and had to be rewired for each new task." Actually it was programmed by women. http://eniacprogrammers.org/ This blind spot would not be quite so egregious if Rothstein hadn't made a point of talking about Marilyn Monroe in two sentences on two pages, a word count that could have acknowledged the more relevant ENIAC fact (pages 27 and 28 (don't bother with the index)). On page 20: "1500 AD, when increased trade and complex market forces in Europe began providing a serious incentive to independent weapons developers" where "trade" and "market forces" are handy euphemisms for genocide, colonization, slave trade, witch trials, and primitive accumulation. Shaking my head. I don't know a lot about technology nevermind drones, which is why I wanted to read this book. I am however a critical enough thinker to see when my intelligence is being offended. These errors would never be intellectually or morally sound but it is the 21st century. There are more than a dozen names on the first page (about this series) but I am so deeply disappointed, I really don't think I will ever bother reading other books in this series. There were also several minor mistakes in grammar, spelling, and fact-checking (like calling Haverford College Haverford University on page 11). If these mistakes are made, all told what can I really expect from this book? I can't keep reading something that undermines basic knowledge and critical thought AND correct comma placement all at the same time.

[Steen Ledet · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short successful book about drones, that is clear, informative and well-researched. If there is a lack for this book, it is that there is no exact point to it. Rather, Rothstein wants us to know about the emergence of the drone as both technology and social form and succeeds quite well. Beyond that, and also because of length and the book series this book is a part of, we don't go anywhere. But a great entry point for drone studies.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting material, and despite covering a breadth of topic areas, maintains a pretty tight narrative throughout. The chapter / essay on "Our Selves and the Drone" was particularly thought-provoking.

[Dmitriy · Rating 1 out of 5]

It drones on and on but says nothing: self-repetitive vaporware.

[Lukey Ellsberg · Rating 1 out of 5]

You’d be better off reading the Wikipedia page about drones. I was taken with the concept and the series, and had high hopes based on the scholars listed on the Advisory Board. But I found the book repetitious, cowardly, and conceptually weak. The best argued sections were summaries of other authors’ works. The air of exploratory disinvestment makes the author seem uncritical to a distasteful degree. I won’t fault the book for having been written been written juuuust as Daniel Hale’s drone papers disclosure dropped, but hell, it came out after the Yemeni wedding strike. Why not mention *any* of the elephants in the room? Why protest that drones are no different from any other military technology, instead of giving any insight whatsoever into the particulars of the drone program? Why set the book up as a narratological analysis and then perform none of the necessary conceptual work to achieve that modest goal?

On the upside: I feel encouraged to write a book. Maybe I’ll get a Bloomsbury deal too.

[Nikki Taylor · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is part of a series called Object Lessons - which is a series about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

This one being about Drones, but unfortunately I can’t tell you a single new fact or detail about what I just read as it was so hard to follow and nothing made much sense. It read like an uninvestigated essay and it was trying to connect dots that just didn’t connect.

The word “narrative” was used so many times also and it was making me really annoyed.

Only thing I can recall is a random fact about Marilyn Monroe.

You could also say that it… Droned on… 😅

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I was half-interested in this book and half-intrigued by the Everyday Objects series of titles, which promised to be something like a 33 1/3 for things. So, Drones.... is a little odd.

On the one hand, it's almost a reference book, and feels, at times, like the kind of nonfiction books I used to consume as a kid, the five worst aircraft disasters or the seven most likely alien races or a collection of squibs from the Ripley Museum. There fourteen or so short chapters here, many of which are themselves full of short sections-- eleven challenges, known and unknown, to developing drones is a representative section. It reads, at times, like a listicle or a recursive web article. Each section is small and not-entirely nourishing, but easy to read.

But then, around all these fact downloads, there's an argument being made, or at least a recognizable method, something about the quality and nature of narratives to organize, predict, and determine our experience. Maybe this element of the book didn't go far enough to really bring the subject into focus? Because it was mentioned a lot, but didn't totally work for me.

It's interesting, at any rate. I've got the Hotel book from the same series, so maybe another one will give me enough insight to decide what I think. And if it's your speed, I sort of comforted myself with the fantasy that I was reading a compilation pulled together by a researcher for William Gibson, that this is a book to dream on rather than a book to read through. Just like those books I read when I was younger.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful background on drone technology, comparing and contrasting its development to that of other similar, key technologies: the car, the aircraft, the computer, and the robot. Obviously much research put into this carefully presented object lesson. There is so much press on drones lately, but no way to assess in the often sensational media what a drone really is or what its future will be. This little book debunks the myths and the outright misinformation one picks up in less reliable sources. Definitely recommended for the reader who wants to understand where this technology came from and is headed.

[lkh0ja · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really interesting look at the drone, its uses, and how it features in contemporary thought.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay - overview of the history that led to drones but not many specifics.

Somewhat biased about ensuring that drones as a technology do not get relegated to the dumpster (e.g. google glass)