An exceptionally lively and interesting book. This is by far the best informed and most insightful account of cybernetics in the Soviet Union.
David Holloway, Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, Stanford University
Cybernetics was among the most important intellectual movements of the mid-20th century. Nowhere was its curious blend of mathematical technique, ideology, information technology, and postmodern scientific universalism more controversial, or more interesting, than in the Soviet Union during the early Cold War. Slava Gerovitch is among the first scholars to command the linguistic skills, the cultural resources, and the historical awareness to offer a definitive account. From Newspeak to Cyberspeak not only sheds new light on the byzantine intellectual world of the Soviet Union, but holds up a fascinating mirror to the West as well. This is a groundbreaking achievement that deserves a wide audience.
Paul N. Edwards, Director, Science, Technology and Society Program, University of Michigan
Once in a while, a historian finds a specific set of developments that can be used to unfold the whole of a culture. Slava Gerovitch has done this with his excellent study of the Soviet cybernetic worldview in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. At once a set of feedback technologies and an ideal of technocratic governance, cybernetics touched on practically every aspect of post-war Soviet life: economics, physics, military strategy, philosophy and, not least of all, politics. Gerovitch has crafted this amalgam of technology and newspeak into a fascinating story, shedding great light on both Cold War science and modern Soviet history. It is a remarkable book.
Peter Galison, Mallinckrodt Professor of the History of Science and of Physics, Harvard University