The Promise of Access: Technology, Inequality, and the Political Economy of Hope

In the final paragraph of this delightful book, Greene notes "If nothing else, I hope I've shown that the story driving so much of our thinking about poverty - 'The Internet: Your Future Depends on It' - did not appear out of thin air. It had to be told over and over, reinforced through web filters, progress reports, and planning documents." This book indeed shows how librarians, Atari Democrats, bootcamps, and service providers all contributed to efforts where technology was imagined as the solution to poverty. Techno-solutionism is abundant in our current world and it's often hard to see how well-intended interventions intersect poorly with entrenched inequalities. This book presents that dynamic in a clear and cogent way.

This was recommended by an interviewee I heard on the radio. But the author has a different idea of his title than the academic I heard speaking gave him credit for.