Cold comfort in the rise of digital technology

This book is sweeping in its scope and in terms of the trends and ideas it explores and examines. It looks at how technology is reshaping our world — from its impact on communities to civic engagement and to the way it even blurs geographical boundaries.

- PROSENJIT DATTA

This book is sweeping in its scope and in terms of the trends and ideas it explores and examines. It looks at how technology is reshaping our world — from its impact on communities to civic engagement and to the way it even blurs geographical boundaries. And to explore and understand these, it does not merely stick to geography, technology and current times — it goes back in history, primarily European history, to examine the impact of Magna Carta on England and the Peace of Westphalia on warring European kingdoms. While the Magna Carta created a formal legal rights system, the Peace of Westphalia — essentially two treaties signed in 1648 that led to the end of the 30-year-war and the 80-year-war — gave rise to the concept of territorial integrity and state sovereignty.

The Westphalian Principles, as the authors point out, spread beyond European borders. Of course, territorial integrity and state sovereignty did not mean the end of wars or annexation of territories or anything of that sort. The French and US revolutions and multiple wars followed but, overall, certain principles had become embedded in what one can term as Western societies. This is all explored in the first chapter of the book.

In the next chapter, the authors go on to examine the impact of the Internet and the World Wide Web (or the Cyberspace) on communities. Online communities, they point out, have an impact far beyond geographical borders.