Reviews

Drone by Adam Rothstein

tinkerer's review

1.0

I don't think this book is well-researched. It is a term paper style with a bunch of holes. There were enough blind spots and tropes at play that I've decided to stop reading this book and instead to read everything cited by this book, plus another book called Drone Theory by Chamayou to understand the drone. To give some examples of the lack of journalistic or academic rigor in this book by Rothstein: on page 10 "the ENIAC could not store programs and had to be rewired for each new task." Actually it was programmed by women. http://eniacprogrammers.org/ This blind spot would not be quite so egregious if Rothstein hadn't made a point of talking about Marilyn Monroe in two sentences on two pages, a word count that could have acknowledged the more relevant ENIAC fact (pages 27 and 28 (don't bother with the index)). On page 20: "1500 AD, when increased trade and complex market forces in Europe began providing a serious incentive to independent weapons developers" where "trade" and "market forces" are handy euphemisms for genocide, colonization, slave trade, witch trials, and primitive accumulation. Shaking my head. I don't know a lot about technology nevermind drones, which is why I wanted to read this book. I am however a critical enough thinker to see when my intelligence is being offended. These errors would never be intellectually or morally sound but it is the 21st century. There are more than a dozen names on the first page (about this series) but I am so deeply disappointed, I really don't think I will ever bother reading other books in this series. There were also several minor mistakes in grammar, spelling, and fact-checking (like calling Haverford College Haverford University on page 11). If these mistakes are made, all told what can I really expect from this book? I can't keep reading something that undermines basic knowledge and critical thought AND correct comma placement all at the same time.