The Global Flow of Information: Legal, Social and Cultural Perspectives, New York University

摘要

One great thing about this book is its capacity to surprise me. It is an engaging, wide-ranging, yet disparate collection of essays reflecting the focus of the organizations that brought the authors together: the Yale Information Society Project and the Yale Law School. The books' contributors are predominantly male (14/16), with only one chapter solely authored by a woman - Dorothy E Denning, Distinguished Professor of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. The writers' backgrounds are more balanced than the gender inclusiveness: nine authors have a legal training or are associated with, for example, legal history; four have expertise in international politics or international affairs; two are defence specialists; a further two offer sociological perspectives while one represents the disciplines of economics and finance. (As can be deduced, there are two authors whose expertise encompasses two of these categories.)