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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.
"Riveting ... a fascinating account of a singular technology that changed humanity's relationship to the world." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"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
"It's the invisible network that runs our world. The story of the Global Positioning System is the story of modern life itself. In Little Blue Dot, Katherine Dunn tells the explosive, untold history of the twentieth century's most important technology. A gripping narrative of spies, scientists, and the secret history of how we came to map the world. You'll never look at that little blue dot the same way again." ―Bradley Hope, co-author of Billion Dollar Whale and Blood and Oil
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 is a business reporter and editor based in London. She has worked at Fortune magazine, S&P Global, The Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones and the Reuters Institute at Oxford University, where she contributed to the Oxford Climate Journalism Network, an international network to help improve climate journalism worldwide. Little Blue Dot is her first book.
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