The Technology Liberation Front’s Adam Thierer reviewed Jonathan Zittrain’s The Future of the Internet–And How to Stop It. Finding the book interesting, he recommended–and later, implored–his readers to pick up a copy. Zittrain’s provocative ideas about “generative” and “sterile” appliances inspire Thierer’s extensive response and the comments that follow. “It’s an important and enlightening book about one possible vision of the Net’s future,” Thierer says. Read the entire review here.

North Korean radios that are altered to receive only the official stations. Cars that listen in on their owners’ conversations. Digital video recorders ordered to self-destruct in viewers’ homes thanks to a lawsuit against the manufacturer thousands of miles away. Jonathan Zittrain’s extraordinary book pieces together the engine that has catapulted the Internet ecosystem into the prominence it has today—and explains that it is sputtering precisely because of its runaway success. With the unwitting help of consumers, the Internet is on a path to a lockdown, a closing off of opportunities and innovation.

Meanwhile, the Kansas City infoZine News previewed the “major international exhibition” at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, “Art in the Age of Steam: Europe, America and the Railway, 1830-1960.” They said, “‘Art in the Age of Steam’ is the most wide-ranging exhibition ever assembled of American and European works of art responding to the drama of the railroad…. [It] will capture the excitement and range of emotions that steam-powered trains elicited as railroads reshaped culture around the world.” Yale University Press is publishing The Railway: Art in the Age of Steam, the catalog for the exhibition; the infoZine staff said that the catalog “is directed at both art lovers and railroad enthusiasts.” The catalog will be available next month.

Through vivid illustrations and engaging texts, The Railway: Art in the Age of Steam captures both the fear and excitement of early train travel as it probes the artistic response to steam locomotion within its social setting. Featuring paintings, photography, prints, and posters, the book includes numerous masterpieces by 19th- and 20th-century artists, including J. M. W. Turner, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Charles Sheeler, and Edward Hopper.