Data Empire

Name: Data Empire
Price: 69.99 AUD
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ISBN: 9781911709817

How information shaped human history

Roopika Risam

$69.99

Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Torva
09 August 2026

History of engineering & technology; Data mining

The first written name in human history was neither a god nor a king, but an accountant. From clay tablets to the algorithmic state, this groundbreaking 11,000 year global history argues that information has always been the seed of power.

Long before writing existed, at the dawn of civilisation in Mesopotamia, rulers pressed marks into clay to keep track of land, people and grain. To rule, they had to keep count. It is no accident, then, that the first written name in human history was neither a god nor a king, but an accountant.

As ships and navigation expanded our horizons, a new age of European empires took control of more than 80 per cent of the world's surface, using censuses, maps and ledgers to decide who belonged, who owed, and who could be sacrificed. Today, we live in the third great era, when trading our information for access can feel harmless or inevitable - yet from targeted advertising to border policing and mass surveillance, data shapes the course of our lives.

Drawing on stories from ancient cave markings and knotted strings to colonial record-keeping and the algorithmic state, Data Empire reveals how data has always been the seed of power- a technology of control that has shaped civilizations and upheld empires. Provocative, humane and sweeping in scope, it asks us to recognise the power data has always held - and to imagine what resistance looks like in an age defined by it, so that we might remake the modern world for the benefit of all.

By: Roopika Risam
Imprint: Torva
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 240mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 40mm
Weight: 750g
ISBN: 9781911709817
ISBN 10: 191170981X
Pages: 368
Publication Date: 09 August 2026
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Roopika Risam is Associate Professor of Digital Humanities and Social Engagement at Dartmouth. Her research explores how histories of race, empire, and technology shape the modern world. She is the author of New Digital Worlds- Postcolonial Digital Humanities in Theory, Praxis, and Pedagogy, taught in over 150 universities worldwide, and co-editor of four collections, including Anti-Racist Community Engagement and The Digital Black Atlantic. Risam is past president of the Association for Computers and the Humanities, the U.S. scholarly organization for digital research in the humanities.