A hard look at Internet culture and the wunderkind it failed in the end.
The spectacular life and tragic downfall of an American iconoclast.
In his debut, Slate correspondent and Columbia Journalism Review contributing editor Peters attempts to bring controversial concepts around content ownership and open access into context by examining the life and untimely death of one of the country’s most visible advocates for “content liberation,” Aaron Swartz (1986-2013). However, the book is an expansion of the author’s 2013 Slate article of the same name, so the new material feels like filler at times. But Peters presents a compelling sketch of a genius with real troubles, much of it presented through his subject’s own words. Swartz was many things, from a serial entrepreneur to a fundamental agent in the creation of initiatives like Creative Commons and Reddit. What put the Internet activist in hot water was his raid on JSTOR, a repository for academic journals, from which Swartz downloaded a significant number of articles. After he was arrested, his legal prosecution was excessive, even by the most conservative standards. Swartz was hit with more than a dozen felony charges that potentially carried with them more than 30 years in prison and $1 million in fines. Despite the zeal of prosecutors to single him out as a cautionary tale, their case ultimately failed. Sadly, Swartz turned down a plea bargain and two days later committed suicide. The book is a strange hybrid of biography, cultural journalism, and speculation that relies too heavily on legal documentation, hacker lore, and questionable conjecture based on close readings of blog posts made by Swartz. While he does present a detailed timeline of Swartz’s life and legacy, Peters’ analysis of the history and culture surrounding the book’s central thesis fails to find a solid point of view. Readers seeking a more nuanced portrait of Aaron Swartz might find more insightful commentary in the 2014 documentary The Internet’s Own Boy.
A hard look at Internet culture and the wunderkind it failed in the end.Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4767-6772-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
