"Failure is an extraordinarily incisive and insightful work of contemporary social theory. The book unravels an infuriating paradox: Silicon Valley and Wall Street companies that move fast, break things, and ruin lives, justify their disastrous performance as a necessary step toward a glorious future. Appadurai and Alexander debunk this naïve narrative of progress, while exposing how important it is to superficially respectable social science. Their critical theory illuminates key trends of our time."
Frank Pasquale, University of Maryland Carey School of Law
"Appadurai and Alexander's Failure exacts a scathing critique of how digital capitalism reorganizes time, the social, and the self. It is a stockpile of insights, an academic arsenal for overthrowing today's 'regimes of failure.'"
John Cheney-Lippold, University of Michigan
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction: The Difference that Doesn't Make a Difference
2. Chapter 1: The Promise Machine: Between "Techno-failure" and Market Failure
3. Chapter 2: Creative Destruction and the New Socialities
4. Chapter 3: Failure, Forgotten: On Buffering, Latency, and the Monetization of Waiting
5. Chapter 4: Too Big to Fail: Banks, Derivatives, and Market Collapse
6. Conclusion: Failure, Remembered
7. References
Arjun Appadurai is Paulette Goddard Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University.
Neta Alexander is an Assistant Professor of Film and Media at Colgate University, New York.