Technology books, patiently argued.
New Books in Technology treats technology as history, politics, business, culture, and material practice rather than as simple gadget news. Recent conversations move from AI hype and dot-com bubbles to household heating, Tor, patents, and the origins of innovation.
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New Books in Technology is a steady, book-driven interview show about technology in the widest useful sense. It is not confined to software, devices, or present-tense industry news. Recent episodes range across AI, online anonymity, fossil fuels, innovation management, patent litigation, music technology panics, and the dot-com bubble. The common thread is argument, not hype. Each conversation starts from a recently published book and gives the author room to explain how the research works. The pace is measured. Interviewers tend to frame the stakes, ask a clear question, and then let the answer run long enough for history and evidence to matter. That patience gives the show its value. A discussion of AI becomes a conversation about marketing language, eugenics, racism, classism, and who benefits from technical systems. A look back at the 1990s turns the dot-com bubble into a question about public narrative, risk, investment, and what remains after speculation collapses. A conversation about innovation management moves from technology capital to patents, founders, investors, and the practical consequences of intellectual property disputes. The show also has a strong feel for material life. In the episode on fossil consumerism, energy history becomes domestic history, with coal, peat, fireplaces, fixed stoves, and foot stoves changing how people warmed rooms and bodies. In the Tor episode, privacy is treated as an engineering problem, a social system, and a political contradiction at the same time. New Books in Technology works best for listeners who enjoy scholarship made conversational. It assumes curiosity and patience. It does not flatten complex subjects into slogans. The tone is collegial, analytical, and quietly useful. Across its strongest episodes, technology appears less as an inevitable future than as a record of choices, conflicts, infrastructures, and stories people learn to live with.
Made for: For readers and intellectually curious listeners who want technology placed in historical, political, and social context. It especially suits people who prefer long-form explanation over trend commentary.
What sets it apart: The show treats technology as a scholarly field with deep roots, not just a news cycle. Its range stretches from AI and Tor to foot stoves and nineteenth-century investment bubbles, with books providing the structure for each conversation.
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Author interviews turn technological change into clear conversations about power, design choices, historical memory, and everyday consequences.
New Books in Technology uses author interviews to follow technology beyond the device or invention. Conversations connect innovation to employment, social order, privacy, intellectual property, energy use, and the stories that form around new industries.
Foot stoves, patent lawsuits: apparently your technology curiosity has range.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A patient, historically grounded challenge to AI's marketing language and civic costs.
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The episode links the dot-com bubble to public attention, narrative, and the long afterlife of bubbles.
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Records worth hearing, reasons worth arguing over.
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Alfred Marcus opens with a clear frame.
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Domestic heat is the subject.
Ben Collier explains why Tor took off where difficult, very slow anonymity technologies did not.
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