4. THE INTERNET OF ELSEWHERE

Barely halfway though, 2011 has already been one of the most tumultuous years for global politics and civic unrest in modern history. And the most dramatic changes have taken place in societies where emerging technology is disrupting how citizen relate to their government and one another. While countries like Libya and Egypt have been the eye of the media storm, some of the most fascinating effects of these shifts have been in countries still off the mainstream radar. In The Internet of Elsewhere: The Emergent Effects of a Wired World, California-born, Germany-based technology journalist Cyrus Farivar explores the role of the internet as a social, political and economic catalyst through compelling case studies from four unexpected countries: Iran, Estonia, South Korea, and Senegal.

From how Skype was invented in Estonia to why Senegal may be Sub-Saharan Africa's best chance for widespread public Internet access to what makes South Korea the most wired country in the world, the book offers profiles of local tech pioneers alongside insightful analyses of cultural context and what the "developed world" can learn from these countries, in some cases years ahead in harnessing the sociopolitical virtues of web technology. And, in a meta move true to the subject matter, Farivar successfully funded the book's European tour on Kickstarter.

"The Internet is not, in fact, a seed. It does not have the ability to bring about world peace and the elimination of the nation-state, any more than the telegraph did. It is but a tool that, when combined effectively with local political and economic realities, can have demonstrably positive and often surprising effects. However, this tool can be co-opted and/or fought against by regimes that are not ready for it to be used freely. Other developing societies, too, may not be completely ready to use the Internet effectively. This is why manifestations of the Internet remain so varied in different corners of the globe. This book is an attempt to tell the story of what happens when the Internet collides, head-on, with history unfamiliar to most Americans." ~ Cyrus Farivar

You can sample The Internet of Elsewhere by reading the fascinating 15-page introduction for free online.

5. A NEW CULTURE OF LEARNING

Reinventing the broken system of today's formal education is one of our era's most pressing cultural concerns. And while most conversations on the subject can be redundant, navel-gazy and ultimately ineffectual, Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown bring a refreshing perspective on the subject with equal parts insight, imagination and optimism. Besides being one of our 7 must-read books on education, their A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change is the most popular book featured on Brain Pickings this year, and for good reason -- it makes a compelling case for a new kind of learning, one growing synchronously and fluidly with technology rather than resisting it with restless anxiety, a vision that falls somewhere between Sir Ken Robinson's call for creativity in education paradigms and Clay Shirky's notion of "cognitive surplus."

"We're stuck in a mode where we're using old systems of understanding learning to try to understand these new forms, and part of the disjoint means that we're missing some really important and valuable data." ~ Douglas Thomas

Full review, complete with video interviews with the authors, here.