Ten years after ITIF released its last summer reading list, and in the face of growing debates around tech issues ranging from social media to antitrust, we are pleased to present the 2024 edition of our summer innovation policy reading list. To save you a trip to the library or bookstore, this list includes not just books we recommend for policy wonks and the general public alike, but also books we do not recommend.

Books We Recommend

Robert D. Atkinson and David Moschella, Technology Fears and Scapegoats: 40 Myths About Privacy, Jobs, AI, and Today’s Innovation Economy (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024).

Technology Fears and Scapegoats debunks 40 widespread myths about big tech, big data, AI, privacy, trust, polarization, automation, and similar fears, while exposing the scapegoating behind them. ITIF President Robert D. Atkinson and Nonresident Senior Fellow David Moschella provide a balanced analysis of technology’s impact on society and conclude it is overwhelmingly positive. The book serves as a clarion call for tech insiders, policymakers, and the general public to restore the West’s faith in technological progress.

Eric Berger, Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX (New York: William Morrow, 2021).

This book provides a detailed and dramatic account of the early years of SpaceX, focusing on the struggles and successes that defined the company’s formative period. Berger delves into the development of SpaceX’s key technologies, highlighting the advancements in innovation that positioned SpaceX as a leader in the commercial space industry, capable of carrying both cargo and humans into space. The book also touches upon the broader implications of SpaceX’s work, such as the potential for human missions to Mars and the transformation of the space industry through reusable rockets. The book also highlights Starlink and what the implications of satellite communications could be for the future.

Andrew Blum, Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet (New York: Ecco, 2019).

Blum explores the physical infrastructure of the Internet, taking readers on a journey through data centers, undersea cables, and Internet exchanges. Blum demystifies the often-invisible network that powers our digital world, shedding light on the tangible elements that enable Internet connectivity. His narrative blends technical insights with human stories, revealing the complexity and global scale of the Internet’s backbone. The book provides a fascinating look at how the Internet operates beyond our screens.

Anu Bradford, Digital Empires (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023).

Bradford compares and describes the main digital regulation pathways of the United States, European Union, and China. This book emphasizes that innovation is state-driven in China, where incentives are very different from the United States’ innovation and digitalization-driven market. She puts these regimes in a “Brussels Effect” package, showing the EU as the regulatory power influencing the world.

Jeffrey Ding, Technology and the Rise of Great Powers (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2024).

The idea that technology enables the rise (and fall) of great powers is not a new one, but it is one that, with the rise of China, is getting renewed attention. One of the best books examining this question of how technology enables national power is from Jeffrey Ding, a professor at George Washington University. Ding rightly notes that what techno-economists call general purpose technologies (GPTs) are the most important driver of national power. These are technologies like steel, electricity, the internal combustion engine, computing and the Internet. But unlike most scholars and pundits who prioritize the capability to develop and produce these technologies in a nation (what he calls leading sector theory), Ding points to the importance of diffusion of these technologies as powering national productivity--and hence national power. This does not mean he completely discounts leading sector theory, particularly as it relates to defense capabilities, but he rightly brings needed attention to the importance of and process of diffusion of GPTs. Toward that end, he focuses on how emerging technologies like AI could create influence relative U.S.-China power. All and all, an important and interesting book.

Thomas Hazlett, The Political Spectrum: The Tumultuous Liberation of Wireless Technology, from Herbert Hoover to the Smartphone (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017).

This book explores the history and impact of spectrum regulation in the United States. Hazlett, a former chief economist at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), argues that government management of the radio spectrum has often been inefficient and has hindered technological innovation. He highlights several instances where regulation stifled innovation, such as delayed adoption of FM radio due to lobbying by existing broadcasters and the FCC’s mismanagement. The book also discusses the long-term effects of spectrum regulation on technological advancements, including the rise of mobile technology and the digital revolution.

Herbert Hovenkamp, Tech Monopoly (Boston: The MIT Press, 2024).

Hovenkamp explores competition problems in a wide range of high-tech firms and offers a realistic look at the powers and limitations of antitrust law in tech markets. He offers simple explanations of the complex economics of digital platform markets and assesses the impact of antitrust laws on the most important tech companies of today. This is an important read for anyone who wishes to understand how antitrust law works.

Walter Isaacson, The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014).

This book explores the history of the digital revolution through the lens of the people who made it possible. Starting with Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage in the 1840s, Isaacson chronicles the contributions of numerous inventors and visionaries, including Vannevar Bush, Alan Turing, John von Neumann, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Robert Noyce, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee, and Larry Page. The book emphasizes how collaboration and teamwork were essential in fostering innovation and creativity throughout the development of modern computing and the Internet.

Jeff Kosseff, Liar in a Crowded Theater: Freedom of Speech in a World of Misinformation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023).

Published in 2023, this is the latest book from the author of The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet, the definitive book on Section 230, and United States of Anonymous, another great book about online speech. Kosseff always has interesting, thought-provoking takes on Internet policy, particularly related to online speech. In this book, he focuses on misinformation, with the recent context of COVID-19, the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, and January 6.

Books We Do Not Recommend

Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (New York: Penguin Press, 2024).

Haidt explores the significant rise in mental health issues among adolescents since the early 2010s, which he blames on the “great rewiring” of childhood, or the shift in children’s time and attention from physical interactions to the virtual world. Haidt identifies two primary culprits: the decline of free play in childhood, and the increased use of smartphones and social media. These factors, he claims, have led to a substantial increase in rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide among teens. While it is important to call for more research to better understand this issue, there is currently no consensus in the scientific community on the correlation between social media and children’s mental health. So, Haidt’s research falls flat and instead further fuels the moral panic around social media.

Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism (Brooklyn: Melville House, 2023).

If you thought capitalism was bad, what has replaced it is even worse. Varoufakis lays out a ridiculous argument that large tech firms now run the world and the rest of us are all landless serfs. The fact that he is a self-proclaimed Marxist should automatically raise red flags, as Marxist economics is, at the end of the day, completely ludicrous (such as Marx’s ridiculous claim that all productivity growth would go to capitalists and none to workers). Oops, real wages grew nine times in the last century. Varaoufakis is in that tradition of illogical thinking—in this case, extrapolating the 3 to 5 percent of the global economy that is the Internet economy into the overall economy (the technofeudalist economy) and even worse saying that the new masses are oppressed because they get to have access to most of these online services for free. Needless to say, you can skip this book.