Petre, Caitlin. Review of Pax Technica by Philip N. Howard. Contemporary Sociology 46(1). (2017): 84-85, DOI: 10.1177/0094306116681813ff.
Over the past quarter-century, mobile phones, tablets, personal computers, and other networked digital devices have rapidly proliferated around the world. In the coming years, a growing number of consumer products—from cars to apparel to home appliances—will be equipped with sensors and hooked into the network, where they will communicate continually with each other (and with humans) about users’ behavioral patterns. How can we understand this coming ‘‘internet of things’’? What will it mean for political and civic life? Will the panoply of connected objects shift the balance of power between states, corporations, and citizens—and if so, how?