Disconnected: Haves and Have-Nots in the Information Age

As a Fulbright Fellow in Namibia, Wresch found 30 personal computer vendors in the capital city of Windhoek, and met businessmen who received floods of e-mail and CD-ROMS from Europe. Just blocks away, migrant laborers relied on word of mouth to get occasional work unloading trucks. Wresch, now a computing and mathematics professor at the University of Wisconsin, takes us on a dizzying global tour of information glut and famine. Television sets per 1000 people? The Netherlands has 906; Bangladesh, five; the U.S., 815 (or 850, depending on which page you're reading). Phone lines per 100? Make that 51 in the U.S.; only one in China, India, Kenya and several other countries. And even where print, broadcast and electronic media abound, so do paradoxes and perils. Libraries across the world are accessible electronically, but books are still being burned; gigabytes of news bounce from satellite to satellite, but journalists are harassed, censored and killed. In case anyone in the information-rich world is getting complacent, Wresch warns of a surfeit of junk, numerous gaps in real information (black holes in cyberspace), and ever-increasing opportunities for invasion of privacy and the spread of hate. Wresch gushes facts like a fire hydrant, but his humane values and high-energy writing make him an excellent guide for this eye-opening trip. (Nov.)