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Podcast: New Books in Science, Technology, and Society
Episode: Edward McPherson, "Look Out: The Delight and Danger of Taking the Long View" (Astra House, 2025)
Description: Look Out: The Delight and Danger of Taking the Long View (Astra House, 2025) by Edward McPherson is an exploration of long-distance mapping, aerial photography, and top-down and far-ranging perspectivesâfrom preâCivil War America to our vexed modern times of drone warfare, hyper-surveillance at home and abroad, and quarantine and protest. Blending history, reporting, personal experience, and accounts of activists, programmers, spies, astronauts, artists, inventors, and dreamers, McPherson reveals that to see is to controlâand the stakes are high for everyone.
The aerial viewâa position known in Greek as the catascopos, or âthe looker-downââis a fundamentally...