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How GPS Shaped the Modern World
by Katherine Dunn
The unknown history of the GPS, created as a military technology for accurate bombing during wartime, now turned daily necessity that impacts all matters economic, social, and cultural.
Gone are the days when we pulled off to the side of the road, twisted a map this way and that and squinted in exasperation before saying, "We're lost." Now, a network of satellites circling the earth points us in the right direction. The Global Positioning System is now not only embedded in our phones but in our cultural histories and futures. GPS, intangible but ubiquitous, has instigated a radical shift in our relationship to our own intuition and place in the world, making us critically dependent on technology we forget is even there.
Little Blue Dot uncovers the GPS's origins in the air battles of World War II, following along as its military uses expanded and shapeshifted to become part of the fabric of modern life. With pulsating detail, investigative reporter Katherine Dunn takes the reader on a fascinating journey from the clunky origins of the technology to its modern day iteration, considering its role in international politics, climate, and artificial intelligence-and its vulnerabilities to manipulation. Sharp and evocative, Little Blue Dot considers the future of GPS, its impact on our understanding of space and time, and the role of technology in our lives.
"Dunn's clear explanations of advanced concepts make this book accessible to nonscientific readers. Her deft integration of the stories of the many fascinating people who contributed to the development of GPS adds an engaging and important human element to the narrative. Final chapters about efforts to counter surprising security issues make this a timely book about current events in addition to a history." —Booklist
This information about Little Blue Dot was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Katherine Dunn (1945–2016) is the author of Geek Love, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Bram Stoker Award, as well as the novels Toad, Attic, and Truck. She was an award-winning boxing journalist whose work appeared in Esquire, KO Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Playboy, The Ring, Sports Illustrated, and Vogue. Her writing on boxing is collected in One Ring Circus. In 2004, Dunn and the photographer Jim Lommasson won the Dorothea Lange–Paul Taylor Prize for their work on the book Shadow Boxers. Dunn died in 2016.
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