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Radical Infrastructure: Imagining the Internet from the Ground Up
A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.
What if we could start over and build the Internet from scratch? How could it be rebuilt or reimagined as more equitable and just? For more than eight years, Britt S. Paris investigated alternative Internet infrastructure projects, conducting interviews, site visits, and policy analysis. In this expansive and interdisciplinary study, Paris critically examines the myriad and contradictory promises, utility, and obstacles to building a completely new Internet. Radical Infrastructure locates and analyzes the boundaries of how people and groups imagine, build, deploy, maintain, and use the Internet as they survive—and even dare to thrive—in challenging political, economic, and environmental contexts. Ultimately, Paris encourages active reflection among scholars, policymakers, and activists and reveals more grounded imaginaries, tactics, and opportunities for future people-centered projects.
What if we could start over and build the Internet from scratch? How could it be rebuilt or reimagined as more equitable and just? For more than eight years, Britt S. Paris investigated alternative Internet infrastructure projects, conducting interviews, site visits, and policy analysis. In this expansive and interdisciplinary study, Paris critically examines the myriad and contradictory promises, utility, and obstacles to building a completely new Internet. Radical Infrastructure locates and analyzes the boundaries of how people and groups imagine, build, deploy, maintain, and use the Internet as they survive—and even dare to thrive—in challenging political, economic, and environmental contexts. Ultimately, Paris encourages active reflection among scholars, policymakers, and activists and reveals more grounded imaginaries, tactics, and opportunities for future people-centered projects.
338 pages, Hardcover
Published February 17, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
August 22, 2026
I didn't know what to expect when I read the book and now, having finished it, I don't know what I got from it. Each chapter covers something which deserves its own in-depth study, yet the author remains frustratingly shallow on each of the points. Each chapter felt like a blurb more than an actual study. The scope of the book was frankly too big for itself.
The author also made some interesting claims which diminished my trust in the rest of what she was talking about. For example, she lumped Keynes and Hayek together as the same kind of neoliberal economist. I guess this claim is possible, but it's NOT something you can just throw out there and expect people to get on board with. And if this is in the beginning groundwork of the chapter, what am I really expecting from the rest? Also, she kept describing the Dispossessed by Le Guin as "luxury communism" but I seem to remember a much more nuanced description of a techno-communist society which was relatively impoverished compared to its neighboring worlds. (The tension of principles and quality of life was one of the main points of the book I'm pretty sure).
I kind of felt like the author wanted to write a manifesto more than a research book, which is fine, but she presents this like her dissertation. Academically, I would want a lot more thoroughly researched claims, a much more specific focus, and way more justification of her claims.
The author also made some interesting claims which diminished my trust in the rest of what she was talking about. For example, she lumped Keynes and Hayek together as the same kind of neoliberal economist. I guess this claim is possible, but it's NOT something you can just throw out there and expect people to get on board with. And if this is in the beginning groundwork of the chapter, what am I really expecting from the rest? Also, she kept describing the Dispossessed by Le Guin as "luxury communism" but I seem to remember a much more nuanced description of a techno-communist society which was relatively impoverished compared to its neighboring worlds. (The tension of principles and quality of life was one of the main points of the book I'm pretty sure).
I kind of felt like the author wanted to write a manifesto more than a research book, which is fine, but she presents this like her dissertation. Academically, I would want a lot more thoroughly researched claims, a much more specific focus, and way more justification of her claims.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review