Information Please: Culture and Politics in the Age ofDigital Machines. By Mark Poster. Durham, NC: DukeUniversity Press, 2006. 393p. $79.95 Cloth, $22.95 paper.

In this book, Mark Poster attempts to provide a philosophicalframework for understanding the significance of the rise ofcomputers, the Internet, and the other digital technologies. Hisargument is that the diffusion of these new technologies results in“complex couplings of humans and machines” (p. 9) that call intoquestion some of the central ideas of our time. The discussionstarts with postcolonial theory and then moves on to recent theoriesof empire, citizenship, identity, ethics, psychoanalysis,intellectual property rights, everyday life, and consumer culture.It is an ambitious work and difficult to read in passages, but theeffort is worth it.