BRATTON, Benjamin H.
The Stack. On Software and Sovereignty – 10th anniversary edition

What has planetary-scale computation done to our geopolitical realities? It takes different forms at different scales—from energy and mineral sourcing and subterranean cloud infrastructure to urban software and massive universal addressing systems; from interfaces drawn by the augmentation of the hand and eye to users identified by self-quantification and the arrival of legions of sensors, algorithms, and robots. Together, how do these distort and deform modern political geographies and produce new territories in their own image? In an account that is both theoretical and technical, drawing on political philosophy, design theory, and computer science, Bratton explores six layers of “The Stack”: Earth, Cloud, City, Address, Interface, User.

New paperback edition – with a new preface by the author.

[publishers’ note]

Published by MIT Press, 2025
Design by Metahaven
Essays / Politics / Media Studies