First published 2026
Data has served as the foundation of power for 11,000 years. Dartmouth professor Roopika Risam traces this story from Mesopotamian clay tablets that tracked land and grain to today's algorithmic surveillance systems. Ancient rulers discovered they needed to count people and resources to control them. European empires later used colonial censuses, maps, and ledgers to govern over 80 percent of the world's surface, determining who belonged and who could be exploited. Modern private brokers now shape what we see and consider real. Risam connects cave markings and knotted strings to contemporary mass surveillance, showing how information collection has always enabled control over civilizations. The book examines how trading personal data for digital access affects our daily lives through targeted advertising and monitoring. Risam offers readers a sweeping analysis of data as a technology of control and poses a crucial question about our future: will we allow new data empires to embed inequality into the next century, or will we create systems that benefit everyone?
Genres: history, social-science, political-science, non-fiction, technology, current-affairs
Vibes: analytical, critical, sweeping, thought-provoking, urgent
Tropes: cause-and-effect-narrative, historical-analysis, systems-thinking
Setting: Mesopotamia, Europe, Dartmouth
Period: Ancient history, Colonial period, 21st century
480 pages · Paperback · Torva
Content warnings: colonialism