Posted by David Post:
Buy My Book!!
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_12_07-2008_12_13.shtml#1228761339
After having worked on it for about a dozen years of so (more like
fourteen, but who's counting?), my book, In Search of Jefferson's
Moose: Notes on the State of Cyberspace, is finally going to see the
light of day some time around the middle of January.
The book has a simple premise: to recreate Jefferson�s analysis of the
New World (as he set it forth in his Notes on the State of Virginia)
for the "new world" of cyberspace. It sounds pretty outlandish, and I
guess it is � but I think it actually works pretty well (though I
leave that to you to decide that for yourself). Along the way, we
uncover some pretty interesting things about the Internet, and about
Jefferson � about network design, Jefferson�s plan for governing the
Western Territory, about the protocol stack and the canals of France,
about distributed routing, end-to-end design, and the Louisiana
Purchase. And about why Jefferson had a moose shipped to him in Paris
while he was serving as US minister to France, and why we should care
about that.
Early reviews (a.k.a. "jacket blurbs")(including one from the VC's own
E. Volokh!) have been pretty complimentary:
�Now and then, ingenious insight yields an authentic work of
genius. David Post�s musing about cyberspace, the law, history, and
a great deal more has produced such a work, conceived and written
in the finest Jeffersonian spirit.� Sean Wilentz, Princeton
University, author of The Rise of American Democracy and The Age of
Reagan
�Reading this beautifully written and extraordinary work today is
what it must have been like to know or read Jefferson then. Post
has crafted an experience in understanding that allows us to
glimpse the genius that Jefferson was, and to leave the book
astonished by the talent this extraordinary writer is.� Lawrence
Lessig, Stanford University, author of Code and Other Laws of
Cyberspace and Remix
�A fresh, insightful, and eminently readable look at cyberspace
policy. It�s surprising and fascinating how much the debates of 200
years ago continue to be relevant today and continue to be echoed
today, even in media about which Jefferson and Hamilton could not
have dreamed.� Eugene Volokh, UCLA, founder, The Volokh Conspiracy
"Jefferson�s Moose is brilliant - and a joy to read. It is the book
of a career: sweeping in scope, without dropping a stitch of
detail. No one but David Post could have produced this sparkling
analysis of the relationship between the world and worldview of
Thomas Jefferson and today�s puzzles of cyberspace.� Jonathan
Zittrain, Harvard University, author of The Future of the
Internet� -- And How to Stop It
I figure that any book that Sean Wilentz, Larry Lessig, and Euguene
Volokh all like must have something going for it . . . I also think
that VC readers are pretty much in the bullseye of my target audience
-- I imagine that there are lots of you who consider yourself serious
Jeffersonians out there (and I can promise you all that you'll learn
something new about a side of Jefferson you didn't know too much
about), and the fact that you're a VC reader probably means you have
more than a passing interest in the Internet and things cyberspatial.
There's lots of stuff in there to debate and discuss; I'm setting up a
[1]book website (now under construction) for that purpose, and I'm
genuinely hopeful that the book will help return Jefferson to the
center of the intellectual debate about governance and society.
As I mentioned, the book won't be out for another 6 weeks or so, but
if you're an early adopter type, you can pre-order it here:
[2][41X6%2BKPo1AL._SL160_.jpg]
Don't worry -- I'll remind you again. :) But I'm looking forward to
hearing what you all have to say about the book, and the overall
project.
References
1. http://jeffersonsmoose.org/
2.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195342895?ie=UTF8&tag=inseaofjefsmo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0195342895
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