The Stack, 10th anniversary edition with new preface by the author: On Software and Sovereignty [Paperback]

Why The Stack—an accidental megastructure—is both a technological apparatus and the geopolitical model of our times.

A tenth anniversary edition of the comprehensive political philosophy of planetary-scale computation, with a new preface from the author.

What has planetary-scale computation done to our geopolitical realities? It takes different forms at different scales—from energy and mineral sourcing and subterranean cloud infrastructure to urban software and massive universal addressing systems; from interfaces drawn by the augmentation of the hand and eye to users identified by self-quantification and the arrival of legions of sensors, algorithms, and robots. Together, how do these distort and deform modern political geographies and produce new territories in their own image? In an account that is both theoretical and technical, drawing on political philosophy, design theory, and computer science, Bratton explores six layers of The Stack: Earth, Cloud, City, Address, Interface, User.Series Foreword
Acknowledgments
Credits
The Stack Decade: Preface to the Tenth Anniversary Edition
Preface for the First Edition
I The Models
Introduction
The Nomos of the Cloud
Platform and Stack, Model and Machine

II The Layers
Earth Layer
Cloud Layer
City Layer
Address Layer
Interface Layer
User Layer

III The Projects
The Stack to Come
The Black Stack

Glossary
Notes
IndexENDORSEMENTS

“In The Stack, Benjamin Bratton shows, with brilliant insight and imagination, what the world is coming to look like in an era of planetary-scale computing. He cuts through many received ideas about technology, globalization, and so fl3E