Why does it seem that all books written about human interaction with emerging technologies are written in postmodernist lingo? Gray's book is not nearly as objectionable in this regard as others (note, especially, the works of Pierre Levy, for truly awe-inspiring levels of incomprehensibiliy). At times he hits on topics that struck me as having a lot of merit (he takes the editors of WIRED to task, for instance, for promoting a sort of hipster-oh-man-this-is-so-awesome approach to technology, and he appropriately skewers libertarianism, etc.). However, I saw two main problems with the book: (1) The author appears to see everything and everybody in the world today as a cyborg of some sort - for example, ultrasound renders the fetus in the womb a cyborg, etc. The concept is so widely applied that it ceases to have meaning. (2) The regrettable lapses into postmodernist drivel, while thankfully infrequent are still discouraging. There is also a little (not a lot) of political correctness a la feminist theory to deal with. For instance, he spends some time skewering (no pun intended) the development of penile implants (cyborg penises!), and points out that the existence of such a phenomena validates the male-centric nature of technology so insightfully criticized by feminist theory. Odd, but no mention of breast implants is made. Purely an oversight, I'm sure!

There are so many serious topics to deal with in the area of our current and future relation to technology - when will someone write a coherent book addressing them?? While this book is an occasionally enjoyable read, in the end it can't be taken all that seriously.

Written in the personal, post-modern style, down to earth, and occasionally profound, Cyborg Citizen is an instructive meditation on the interpenetration of the machine and the human, the machine and the non-human, the human and the non-human. Hables Gray reviews most of the relevant academic literature (Haraway and others) draws examples of cyborg lifestyles from the news (Christopher Reeves and others), from pop culture (TV, Sci-Fi, comic books) to make his larger point that the signs of cyborgization are everywhere now, and that we are all cyborgs now, whether we know it or not. Though penetrated by technoscience, most of us are not aware of the extent to which we have become drafted in the great cyborg experiment. Hables Gray argues we need to find new ways of thinking about the intersection of science, technology, and living things in order to make better (or at least some!) choices about where the technoscience juggernaut is taking us.

He explores a variety of different areas where political thinking has either been ineffective or brushed aside by the exigencies of technoscience and capitalism: Frankenfoods, franken-species, cloning, in-vitro fertilization practices are all covered, as are transgendering and cyborgization in pursuit of sexual fulfillment. He does equal justice to all the complexities these collisions entail. That's why I didn't give the book the full 5 stars, actually, because not all these topics deserve examination at the same length. But that's a minor complaint, of course.

After reading Cyborg Citizen you will find examples of cyborgs everywhere. Of course, as tool users and builders and putterers, we've always been cyborgs -- as much shaped by our tools as the things we've shaped with them -- but the recognition of this fact and how it plays out across the realms of the civic, the economic, the scientific and technological as described in Cyborg Citizen will show the reader how far we are from Rousseau's state of nature -- if indeed there ever was such a place -- but that we may not have much further to go before the tools and cyborgs we build remake the world into place where we would not choose to live, indeed, a world where we may not be able to live. Not anti-techoscience, but rather, pro-thoughtful technoscience, Gray lays out the conundrums simply and argues that to be only pro or anti-techoscience is a luxury we cannot afford. Ultimately, he argues that as cyborgs we have to start thinking about what that really means.

In Cyborg Citizen, the author argues that the creation of cyborgs calls for new definitions of citizenship. Examples can include Internet offerings and the legal and political issues raised by its use, and issues affecting the mechanization of humans with artificial parts. An intriguing survey of changing images of civil rights and liberties.

Whis book has been badly influenced by H. Figuroa's Caribbean Psychology percetion of the cyborg image.

I would not suggest this book for someone looking for a quick, easy answer to the world of cyborgs. There are papers here from dozens of authors, each talking about a wholly different aspect of the cyborg - some cover the idea that technology has already turned many of us into cyborgs, others that fetuses are cyborgs, some stick with the traditional notion of the cyborg as half-man half-machine, some examine the role of the cyborg in film. It takes all kinds. And, in sturdy academic practice, some of the authors even give gentle jabs to other papers in the book, noting flaws or the overlooking of some fine point. Most of the research draws from Donna Haraway's original research into cyborgs, but there are a few people that are trying to break away from her hegemonistic mold. For a very entertaining and much needed example of this, try to find the two or three digs at Donna Haraway's definition of cyborg.

This book is one of the most invaluable resources for anyone doing serious research into the idea of the cyborg. Though there is a great interview with Clynes, co-inventer of the term "cyborg," The Cyborg Handbook won't do for primary source material. The bibliography is wildly extensive, however, and the book functions as an excellent starting point for the researcher. For those who aren't afraid to work for it, but who have a more casual interest, this book can be both a starting and ending point.

Chris Hables Gray has created an exquisitely thought provoking cross disciplinary anthology exploring the evolution of cyborg and machine intelligence on the organism called Earth. The non-linear multi-dimensional threads of what is obviously a three dimensional and linear data source leads the reader to a deeper understanding of our organic technological and social crucible of biochemistry and machine.

I am using this book as a resource for a graduate course and will probably adopt it as a textbook in the future.

Gray is an academic historian who crosses the study of military history with the history of technology. His primary thesis in the book, which is a revision of his PhD dissertation, is that the nature of war shifted in the mid-20th century from a modernist position of war for the sake of ideology (e.g., totalitarian versus democratic rule) to a postmodernist position of war for the sake of regional and economic conflict. To readers unfamiliar with debates over what is modernism or postmodernism, the thesis may seem insignificant, and Gray does little to introduce these concepts to a readership wider than that of the initiated. His bibliography is good though, so readers may follow up on the references to enhance their understanding of modernity. As for the question of new technology in war, Gray presents some provocative examples of how the developed world's faith in technology renders it blind to the pitfalls of confronting a determined and decidedly anti-modern enemy in the developing world. As many have claimed, when the Cold War ended, the world's conflicts altered from an east-west axis (capitalist versus communist) to a north-south axis (the haves versus the have nots). Gray alludes to this idea, but he could bring it out more in further writing on the problem of how an unquestioning adherence to new technologies leads to more defeat than victory. After all, the moral dilemma of war remains: Each soldier must kill the enemy one bullet at a time, and no amount of distancing from this difficult task by advanced military weapons lessens the gravity of the decision to wage war. Any distraction from this problem by the enchantment with advanced technology only makes the world a more dangerous place. Gray says as much, and I agree.